We have followed the transformation of the outward relations of Rome and the Romano-Hellenic world generally in its leading outlines, from the battle of Pydna to the period of the Gracchi, from the Tagus and the Bagradas to the Nile and the Euphrates.  It was a great and difficult problem which Rome undertook, when she undertook to govern this Romano-Hellenic world; it was not wholly misunderstood, but it was by no means solved.  The untenableness of the idea of Cato’s time—­ that the state should be limited to Italy, and that its rule beyond Italy should be only over clients—­was doubtless discerned by the leading men of the following generation; and the necessity of substituting for this ruling by clientship a direct sovereignty of Rome, that should preserve the liberties of the communities, was doubtless recognized.  But instead of carrying out this new arrangement firmly, speedily, and uniformly, they annexed isolated provinces just as convenience, caprice, collateral advantage, or accident led them to do so; whereas the greater portion of the territory under clientship either remained in the intolerable uncertainty of its former position, or even, as was the case with Syria especially, withdrew entirely from the influence of Rome.  And even the government itself degenerated more and more into a feeble and short-sighted selfishness.  They were content with governing from one day to another, and merely transacting the current business as exigency required.  They were stern masters towards the weak.  When the city of Mylasa in Caria sent to Publius Crassus, consul in 623, a beam for the construction of a battering-ram different from what he had asked, the chief magistrate of the town was scourged for it; and Crassus was not a bad man, and a strictly upright magistrate.  On the other hand sternness was wanting in those cases where it would have been in place, as in dealing with the barbarians on the frontiers and with the pirates.  When the central government renounced all superintendence and all oversight of provincial affairs, it entirely abandoned not only the interests of the subjects, but also those of the state, to the governor of the day.  The events which occurred in Spain, unimportant in themselves, are instructive in this respect.  In that country, where the government was less able than in other provinces to confine itself to the part of a mere onlooker, the law of nations was directly trampled under foot by the Roman governors; and the honour of Rome was permanently dragged in the mire by a faithlessness and treachery without parallel, by the most wanton trifling with capitulations and treaties, by massacring people who had submitted and instigating the assassination of the generals of the enemy.  Nor was this all; war was even waged and peace concluded against the expressed will of the supreme authority in Rome, and unimportant incidents, such as the disobedience of the Numantines, were developed by a rare combination of perversity and folly into