=Motives of Conquest.=—­The Romans did not from the first have the purpose to conquer the world.  Even after winning Italy and Carthage they waited a century before subjecting the Orient which really laid itself at their feet.  They conquered, it appears, without predetermined plan, and because they all had interest in conquest.  The magistrates who were leaders of the armies saw in conquest a means of securing the honors of the triumph and the surest instrument for making themselves popular.  The most powerful statesmen in Rome, Papirius, Fabius, the two Scipios, Cato, Marius, Sulla, Pompey, Caesar, and Crassus, were victorious generals.  The nobles who composed the Senate gained by the increase of Roman subjects, and with these they allied themselves as governors to receive their homage and their presents.  For the knights—­that is to say, the bankers, the merchants, and the contractors—­every new conquest was a new land to exploit.  The people itself profited by the booty taken from the enemy.  After the treasure of the king of Macedon was deposited in the public chest, taxes were finally abolished.  As for the soldiers, as soon as war was carried into rich lands, they received immense sums from their general, to say nothing of what they took from the vanquished.  The Romans conquered the world less for glory than for the profits of war.

EFFECTS OF ROMAN CONQUEST

=The Empire of the Roman People.=—­Rome subjected all the lands around the Mediterranean from Spain to Asia Minor.  These countries were not annexed, their inhabitants did not become citizens of Rome, nor their territory Roman territory.  They remained aliens entering simply into the Roman empire, that is, under the domination of the Roman people.  In just the same way today the Hindoos are not citizens but subjects of England; India is a part, not of England, but of the British Empire.

=The Public Domain.=—­When a conquered people asked peace, this is the formula which its deputies were expected to pronounce:  “We surrender to you the people, the town, the fields, the waters, the gods of the boundaries, and movable property; all things which belonged to the gods and to men we deliver to the power of the Roman people.”  By this act, the Roman people became the proprietor of everything that the vanquished possessed, even of their persons.  Sometimes it sold the inhabitants into slavery:  AEmilius Paullus sold 150,000 Epeirots who surrendered to him.  Ordinarily Rome left to the conquered their liberty, but their territory was incorporated into the domain of the Roman people.  Of this land three equal parts were made: 

  1.  A part of their lands was returned to the people, but on
  condition that they pay a tribute in money or in grain, and Rome
  reserved the right of recalling the land at will.

  2.  The fields and pastures were farmed out to publicans.