From flee Destruction of Carthage to the Ternvination of the Republic.—We have already alluded to the wars waged in Spain during the first half of the 2d c. B c. The humane and conciliatory policy pursued toward the natives by Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus, father of the ill-fated tribunes, brought about a peace, 179 n.e., that lasted 25 years; but in 153 n.c., a general rising of time Celtibe•ians took place, followed by another on tile part of the Lusitanians of Portugal. The struggle maintained by these gallant ban barians against their mighty oppressor, lasted, with intervals of peace, for the space of 20 years, but ended, in spite of gleams of brilliant success, as such contests invariably do, in the final overthrow of the undisciplined and uncivilized combatant. All the valor of the shepherd-warrior Viriathus (q.v.), even if the assassin's steel had spared his life, would not have prevented the annexation of Lusitania to the Boman empire, nor did the unsurpassable heroism of the besieged Numantiues avail to baffle the military skill of the younger Scipio.
Toward the conclusion of the Numantine war occurred the first of those horrible social outbreaks known as "servile" or "slave" wars, which marked the later ages of the republic. The condition of the slaves has been already referred to: but what aggra vated the wretchedness of their lot was the fact that most of them bad been originally 'freemen—not inferior in knowledge, skill, or accomplishments to their masters, but only in force of character and military prowess. The first slave insurrection broke ont in Sicily, 134 B.C., where the system was seen at its worst. Its leader was one .Eunus, a Syrian, who, mimicking his native monarch, took the title of king Antiochns. The suddenness and barbaric fury.,of the revolt for it time rendered all opposition impossible. The slaves overran the island, like demoniacal let lodse; and routed ,one Roman army after another. But a slave insurrection has no aim beyond immediate revenge, and when the first wild paroxysms of ferocity are over, it becomes powerless, more even from a moral than a physical exhaustion. and can be quelled with ease. In 132 13.C. the con sul Publics Rupilius restored " order" in the island. In the east, fortune continued to smile upon the Roman arms. Attains III., Philometer, villainous despot of the true oriental stamp, who massacred or poisoned every one that ventured to give lihn advice, dying 133 B.C., bequeathed his client-kingdom of Pergairms to its protector—Rome: and after a fierce struggle with an ambitious pretender called Aristoniens, the Romans obtained possession of the splendid bequest, and formed it into the province of Asia, 129 B.c.
We may here enumerate the different provinces into which the Roman senate divided its foreign conquests in the order of their organization. 1. Sicily, 241 B.C.; 2. Sardinia and Corsica, 238 B.C. •, 3. Hispania giterior, and 4. Hispania Ulterior, 205 B.C. ; 5. Gallia Cisalpina, 191 B,C. ; 6. Macedonia, 146 B.C.; 7. 111yricum, circa 146 no.; 8. Achaia, (or Southern Greece), circa 146 B.C.; 9. Africa (i.e. the Carthaginian territory), 146 B. C; IO. Asia (kingdom of Pergamus), 129 B.C. A few years later, 118 B.C., an 11th was added by the conquest of the southern part of transalpine Gaul, and was commonly called, to distinguish it from the rest of the country, " the Province;" hence the moderu Provence'.
In'Afriea, the overthrow of Jugurtha (q.v.), 104 n.e., by the consul Marius, added yet further to the military renown and Strength of the republic. Meanwhile, from a new quarter of the world, a gigantic and unforeseen danger threatened the Roman state. North of the Alps there had longbeen roaming in the region of the middle Danube an unsettled people called the Cimbri (q.v.), whose original home was probably the n.w. of Germany. They first came into collision with the Romans in Noricum, 113 n.e.; after which they turned westward, and poured through the Helvetian valleys into Gaul. where they overwhelmned alike the native tribes and the Roman armies. At Aransio (Orange) on the Rhone, 105 B.C., a Roman army of 80,000 was annihilated; but instead of invad ing Italy, the barbarians blindly roped through the passes of the Pyrenees, wasted precious months in contests with native tribes of Spain as valiant and hardy as them selves, and gave the Romans lima to recover from the effects-of their terrible defeat. Marius, who had-just returned from his Numidian victories, was reappointed consul; and at Aqua-Sextite (Aix. in he literally exterminated the dreaded foe, 102 B.C. Next year, near Milan, the same doom befell another northern horde—the Tentones. who bad accompanied the Cimbri in their irruption into Spain; baton their withdrawal, had parted from their associates in Gaul, forced their way back through Switzerland, and decended into Italy by the Tyrolese valleys. lathe same year a second insurrection of the slaves in Sicily, which had reached an alarming height, was suppressed by the consul March's Aquillius.