The Struggle for Empire

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Excerpt from The Struggle for Empire: A History of Rome, 287-202 B. C Yeoman was content to till his small holding and the cry Of a lazy proletariat for Bread and Games was unheard, when the unscrupulous demagogue was as rare as the self seeking general, and fortunes were not yet made from the pillage Of a province. They delighted to remember how a Roman citizen would leave his plough to take the command Of an army, and how Gains Fabricius refused the bribes Of Pyrrhus and yet died so poor that he was buried at the public expense. TO them, men like this Fabricius and M'. Curius, the victor Of Beneventum, seemed the embodiment Of that severe simplicity that had once been the characteristic Of the Roman, but was in their days well-nigh extinct. Possibly in their aversion to the evils by which they were surrounded they exaggerated the purity of the good Old times, but in the main their estimate was just: the evils from which Rome afterwards suffered were not yet apparent, the extremes Of great wealth and great poverty did not exist, the mass Of the people were engaged in honest and remunerative toil, the government of the senate was vigorous and clean handed. The period was marked by peril, and even by disaster, but ultimately, thanks to the sacrifices cheerfully made by all classes, the nation emerged victorious from its struggles, and the attack of stubborn Hannibal was repulsed as completely as that Of the impetuous Pyrrhus. 2. For a hundred and fifty years after the expulsion Character of the Of the kings Rome made little progress towards Wars of Rome, that conquest Of Italy which she was ultimately 509-343 destined to achieve. At first it appeared as though the driving Out Of the foreign monarchs - for the Tarquinii no doubt symbolised Etruscan domination - would be fatal both to Rome and to Latium, the restless tribes which encircled the Romans - the Volscians, Aequians, and Sabines - renewed their hostilities, and carried their raids right up to the walls of the city. TO repel their onset, Rome was compelled to look abroad for allies: she found them in the kindred cities Of the Latin League (493 b.c.) and in the Hernicans (486 both, like herself, too weak to stand alone. It was agreed that mutual assistance should be given in repelling and in attacking the common foes. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully, any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.