The Rise of the Roman Republic77four parts, but their patience was wearing thin. They
destroyed seventy towns in Epirus, which had sup-
ported Macedon, and sold 150,000 of its inhabitants
into slavery. Troops were then sent to bolster the pro-
Roman party in the Aetolian League, while one thou-
sand hostages were taken from Achaea even though the
Achaeans had supported Rome. One of them was
Polybius, who used his exile to form a connection with
the Scipios. The others were not so fortunate. Most
were dispersed among the Italian provincial towns.
Those who survived were returned in 151 B.C. after sev-
enteen years in exile.
Meanwhile, a revolt had broken out in Macedonia
under the leadership of a man who claimed to be
Perseus’s son. The Romans easily suppressed it and an-
nexed Macedon as a Roman province, but the
Achaeans, still angry over the hostage issue, decided to
challenge Roman authority on several fronts. The re-
sponse was devastating. In 146 B.C. the Achaean
League suffered its last defeat on the battlefield. The
Romans, thoroughly exasperated, destroyed the ancient
city of Corinth in reprisal. They killed the men, en-
slaved the women and children, and carried away the
city’s priceless art treasures. They then abolished the
Greek leagues and replaced democratic governments in
several cities with oligarchies responsive to Rome. Years
later the terms of settlement were loosened, but Greece
remained a Roman protectorate with no independent
policy of its own.
It is a measure of Rome’s enormous power that,
while annexing Macedon, defeating Antiochus, and re-
ordering the affairs of Greece, the republic abandoned
none of its ambitions in the west. Between 201 B.C. and
183 B.C. the Romans annexed Liguria, the area around
modern Genoa, and settled their old score with the
Gauls. The Gallic tribes south of the Po were defeated,
and many fled beyond the Alps to be replaced by Ital-
ian colonists.
At the same time, the Romans embarked upon a
bitter struggle for the Iberian Peninsula. After Carthage
surrendered, Roman magistrates seized its Spanish
colonies and extracted a fortune in tribute that came ul-
timately from mines in the interior. The towns, sup-
ported by a number of Celtiberian tribes, rebelled in
197 B.C., and Cato was sent to suppress them. Cato be-
lieved that “war supports itself.” He insisted that his
troops live off the country, and though modestly suc-
cessful in military terms, his campaign of atrocity and
confiscation ensured that the war would continue.
The Celtiberians resorted to guerrilla warfare.
Other communities became involved, and it was not
until 133 B.C. that Numantia, the last center of Span-
ish resistance, fell to the Romans after a lengthy siege.
Scipio Aemilianus, the Roman commander and
adopted grandson of Africanus, ordered it burned to
the ground without waiting to consult the Senate. The
siege of Numantia, like the war itself, had been con-
ducted with unparalleled savagery on both sides.
Whole tribes had been massacred even when they sur-
rendered to the Romans on terms, but Spain, too, was
now Roman territory.
Meanwhile, Carthage had been observing the
terms of the peace treaty. Its military power and much
of its wealth were gone, but the Roman faction headed
by Cato wanted nothing less than the total destruction
of its old rival. For years Cato had ended every speech
in the Senate, regardless of the subject, by saying
“Ceterum censeo delendam esse Carthaginem”(“Moreover, I
think Carthage must be destroyed”). In 151 B.C. he and
his followers saw their chance.
Since joining the Romans at the battle of Zama, the
able and ambitious Masinissa, king of Numidia, had
built a powerful North African state at Carthage’s ex-
pense. When the Carthaginians tried to stop him, his
Roman allies saw their action as a breach of the treaty.
In a series of cunning diplomatic moves, the Romans
demanded ever greater concessions, ending with a de-
mand for the destruction of the city and the removal of
its population. Surprisingly, the Carthaginians, who
had been deprived of most of their weapons, refused.
After a long and bitter siege, the city fell in 146 B.C.
Carthage was destroyed as promised, and a furrow
plowed through it that was then sown to salt to indi-
cate that the land would never be occupied again.
By 133 B.C. Rome had acquired seven overseas
provinces. Carthaginian territory was incorporated into
the province of Africa and protected by an alliance
with the Numidians. Spain, though technically a single
province, had been divided in two by Scipio Africanus:
Nearer Spain (Hispania Citerior), comprising the east
coast from the Ebro valley to Cartagena, and Further
Spain (Hispania Ulterior) to the south and west in what is
now Andalusia. Macedon was protected by alliances
with the Illyrians and by the utter dependency of the
Greeks, while Sicily, Corsica, and Sardinia were islands
in a sea commanded by the Roman fleet. Pergamum be-
came the Roman province of Asia Minor.
The Romans had not planned to create a world
empire and were at first unprepared to govern it.
Their political institutions, though sophisticated, were
those of a city-state. Financial structures remained
primitive. The Senate would not extend ally status to
the newly conquered regions and was at first reluctant
to organize them into provinces or to maintain armies