Philip III., king of Macedonia, after the battle of Canna, had concluded a treaty with Hannibal This led to the first Macedonian war, which lasted from B.C. 214 till 205, and was carried on with little vigour. A second war with Macedonia lasted from B.C. 200 till 397, and was terminated by the battle of Cynoscephalte, gained by Quinctius Flaminius, by which the power of Macedonia was broken, and Philip became a vassal of Rome. Soon after followed the war with Antiochus (e.c. 192), which was carried on in Greece and in Asia ; the battle of Magnesia decided the victory, and the power of Syria was broken.
Perseus, the successor of Philip III. in Macedonia, who had inherited his father's hatred of the Romans, declared war against them in ac.171. This war was at first very unfortunate for the Romans, but in B.C. 168 L. .Emilins Paulue decided the fate of Macedonia in the battle of Pydna.
The third Punic war lasted from B.C. 149 to 146, when the Romans razed Carthage to the ground (ac. 146), and her territory became a Roman province under the name of Africa. Macedonia was next reduced to the form of a province ; and the same fate befel Greece after the fall of Corinth in B.C. 146. The discontented Spaniards, headed by Viriathus, carried on war with the Romans for many years with varying success, from B.C. 148 till 140. After the death of Viria. thus in the latter year the Romans penetrated as far as the western coast, but the natives nevertheless did not submit. NI:mantle, which offered the most determined resistance, was totally destroyed in ac. 133. Spain then became apparently quiet, and Roman com missioners arranged the affairs of the country. Attains, the last king of Pergamna, left, in ac.133, his kingdom as an inheritance to Rome; the disputes arising out of this gift led to the reduction of Asia into the form of a province (s.c.129). How completely the old distinction between patricians and plebeians had disappeared during these incessant wars, may be inferred from the fact, that in ac. 172 both the consuls, and in ac. 131 both the censors, were plebeians. Ever since the wars of Hannibal, the number of plebeian senators had exceeded that of the patricians. The citizens were either exorbitantly rich or in abso lute poverty. The illustrious families had almost monopolised the lucrative offices of the republic, and the small landowners, on account of the constant wars, had been compelled to neglect their fields, and in numerous cases had sold them to the nobles. Such reduced persons
wandered about homeless, with their wives and children, and lived in extreme poverty. (Plot. 'Tib. Gracchus,' c. 9.) Tho only remedy was to provide this multitude of destitute citizens with lands, and to raise them to the station of an independent middle class. This was undertaken by the two brothers. Tiberius and Caine Gracchus, who proposed to relieve the people by an equitable distribution of the public lands and by the leading out of colonies. The aristocratic party gained the victory over the Grscchi, bat it was gained by crime and bloodshed. Several regulations of the agrarian law were abolished, the nobles still extended their possessions by purchasing the smaller portions of the poor, and expelled the impoverished peasantry. The large estates of the nobles were cultivated by an enormous number of foreign slaves, whom the long wars of the Romans had brought into Italy. (Appian, 27.) Jagortha, the usurper of the kingdom of Numidia, in B.C. 106 was brought to Rome in triumph, and C. Marius, the conqueror of Jagurtha, annihilated (n.c. 102) the whole body of the Teutones near Aqua:. Scathe, and in the following year the Cimbri in the Campi Ilaudii These barbarians had been hovering over the northern frontiers of Italy since ac. 113, and had defeated several Roman armies sent against them.
The demand of the Italians to be admitted to the Roman franchise led (e.c. 91) to the bl oody arid d estruc ti we Social or Mars tan war. The Italians, seeing that there was no hope of gaining their object, intended nothing leas than to destroy Rome, to establish a new Italian republic with a senate of 500 members and two consuls, and to make Corfinium under the name of Italics its centre and capital. The LULL, and Umbrians remained faithful to Rome, and obtained, together with some other places in Etruria, the Roman franchise by a Lex Julia. In the first campaign the Romans were unsuccessful, but Cu. Pompeius Strabo defeated the Italian allies at Asculum, which be took and destroyed (s.o. 89). The Italians gradually submitted, and received the franchise, and thus the great mass of the inhabitants of the peninsula became Roman citizens. The province of Gallia Transpadana received in the same year by the Lex Poinpeia the Jun Latii, that is, those political rights which the Latina had possessed previons to receiving the full franchise ; but did not obtain the Roman franchise till Julius Caesar became dictator.