revolution, which the Gracchi attempted to make, and they failed. Between the two parties at Rome a wise man could see no safety for the state. There was on the one side the greediness and tyranny of the Optimates; on the other, the turbulence of the Populares, who put themselves at the head of the people to gratify their own ambition under the name of serving the state. In either way there was only one end. The party of the Optimates through the mutual jealousy of the members would not so soon submit to the dominion of one of their own body; but a leader of the popular party had only to overthrow his opponents, the Optimates, and then he was master for a time at least. So it happened at Rome.

Polybius thought that the perfection of the Roman constitution was not attained by reason, but grew out of the struggles and circumstances of the state, which led to such improvements as opportunity suggested. Thus at last Rome had the fairest frame of government that was then known; and it was in this perfected state during the war with Hannibal. Polybius saw what it was between the second and third Punic wars; and he foresaw that like all political institutions it must perish through luxury and vice and the rivalry of ambitious men. He foresaw a time when the popular party would have the power and the direction of affairs, when the constitution would have the name of liberty and democracy, but would be in fact the worst of constitutions, an ochlocracy, a rabble rule.

Machiavelli has designated the Florentine parties by the name of Popolani and Nobili; but the comparison between the civil broils of Rome and Florence is not exactly parallel, because, as it has been remarked, the nobles of Florence were not the same as the Patricians of Rome nor yet the same as the Roman nobles, either in origin or in power. But the comparison between the later republic of Rome and Florence is so far just that we have two parties opposed to one another, not to further the interest of the state, but their own; and thus the state was rent in pieces, and finally republican were exchanged for monarchical forms. In the beginning of the Fourth Book of the Florentine Histories Machiavelli has some remarks which are true for all time, and applicable to

the later history of the Roman state: "States, and those particularly which are not well ordered and are administered under the name of Republics, often change their government and condition, not between liberty and servitude, as most suppose, but between servitude and licence. Since it is only the name of liberty that is used both by the ministers of licence, who are the popular party (i popolani), and by the ministers of servitude, who are the nobles (i nobili); every one of them wishing not to be placed either under the laws or under men. It is true that when it does happen, though it happens rarely, that by the good fortune of the state there rises in it a wise, good, and powerful citizen, who frames laws, by which those humours of the nobles and popular leaders are kept quiet or so far restrained that they can do no harm, then it is that such a state can be called free, and that condition of affairs may be considered stable and firm. For as it is founded on good laws and good order, it needs not, as other states do, the merit of one man to support it. Many antient republics, which had a long existence, possessed such laws and ordinances. Such laws and such ordinances have been wanting and are wanting in all those republics which have often changed and are changing their government from the state of tyranny to the state of licence, and from the state of licence to the state of tyranny; for in them, by reason of the powerful enemies each of the two states has, there is not and cannot be any stability, since the one form of government does not please the good, the other does not please the wise; the one can easily do harm, the other with difficulty can do good; in the one, insolent men have too much authority, in the other, fools; and it is necessary that both forms must be maintained by the merit and good fortune of a single man, who may either fail through death or by excessive labour become useless."

CHAPTER XXI.

GALLIA.

B.C. 122, 121.

Ir may appear strange that the Romans fixed themselves firmly in Spain before they attacked France, for a campaign in France is a much easier matter than in Spain. Undoubtedly one reason for choosing Spain as a battle-ground was the rivalry with Carthage, which held a large part and the best part of the Spanish peninsula, and derived from it both recruits for her armies, wool for clothing, and a supply of the precious metals and iron. If the Romans could drive the Carthaginians out of Spain as they had driven them out of Sicily and Sardinia, the resources of their enemy would nearly be cut off, and his final defeat was certain. When Carthage was destroyed, the Romans still maintained their possessions in Spain. They neither could give them up safely, nor is there any reason to suppose that they wished to do so, though the occupation cost them both men and money. The cost may have been more than the profit to the state, but the ambition of the Roman annually-elected magistrates to distinguish themselves in arms and the field which Spain and especially the south offered for profitable adventures and speculation, sufficiently explain why the Romans held what they had acquired in the wars against Carthage. The extension of their dominion in the peninsula was a necessary consequence, for if they did not subdue the warlike nations of the centre, the west, and the north-west, they could never be at rest, and they ran the risk of losing what they had gotten. It is idle to seek any further reasons for the final subjugation of the peninsula.

The Romans were content at first with subduing and exterminating the Gallic peoples in the north of Italy and securing themselves in the great plain of the Po. They were not yet ready to attempt the subjugation of the Transalpine Ligurians and Gauls, for they were a large and warlike nation, and the Romans had learned by experience that the Gauls were a dangerous enemy. (The roads into Gallia over the Alps were still unknown to the Romans, and the cities on the south coast of France were dependent on Massilia, the friend and old ally of Rome. Circumstances brought the Romans into the south of France as allies of the Massaliots. They first landed on the coast as friends and protectors; they ended by making themselves masters of all the country between the Pyrenees and the Rhine. In the year B.C. 154 the Romans sent a force into the south of France under the consul Q. Opimius to aid the Massaliots against their neighbours the Oxybii and Deciates, both of them Ligurian tribes, who occupied the country west of the Var, along the coast. The Roman consul defeated these Ligurians and gave part of their country to the Massaliots. The little that we know of this campaign is contained in the fragments of Polybius. Again in B.C. 125 the Romans sent the consul M. Fulvius Flaccus to assist the Massaliots against the Salyes. This campaign has been briefly described. It remains to show now in what manner the Romans planted themselves permanently in the south of France.

The foundation of Massilia is fixed at the year B.C. 600 by the antient authorities. The founders, the Phocaeans of Ionia, were one of the most enterprising maritime peoples of antiquity, and they showed their countrymen the way to the Hadriatic and the coasts of Spain and France. In B.c. 546, when Cyrus the Persian conquered Ionia, part of the Phocaeans left their city, and it is sometimes stated in modern books that some of them took refuge in their colony of Massilia, but the evidence for this second settlement is not quite satisfactory. There is better authority for these fugitive Phocaeans having settled Velia on the south-west coast of Italy.

The original Phocaean adventurers found a small port on

the south coast of France and east of the mouths of the Rhone, and here they built Massilia on a rocky, bare, and sterile coast. After the fashion of many of the Greek settlers they looked to the advantage of a safe position on the sea and to commerce rather than to the acquisition of territory. When we view this barren tract around the city of Marseille, we cannot help wondering how the original settlers obtained sufficient food. They must at first have been few in number, and could only have maintained themselves by being on friendly terms with the native Ligurians; and such is the tradition. The sea furnished them with fish, and the country about Marseille was good enough for the vine and the olive. It is probably true, as it is generally said, that the Massaliots introduced the culture of the vine into France or improved it, for the vine is a native of the south of France. There is little doubt that they introduced the olive, the cultivation of which is still confined by natural causes to the lower basin of the Rhone and the old province of Languedoc. The Massaliots were never a military people, a fact which sufficiently accounts for their not spreading themselves inland, where they would have had a warlike nation to contend against. They were traders and seamen. They walled their town, improved the natural harbour, and faithful to the religious usages of their countrymen they built a temple to Artemis of Ephesus, for though Phocaea was the metropolis or parent city of Massilia, the religion came from Ephesus. The Massaliots established the worship of Artemis in all their colonies. A wooden statue of the goddess brought from Ephesus was the patron saint of the town, and every colony of Massilia received from the mother city the same symbol of religion and community of origin.

The early constitution of Massilia was an oligarchy, as Aristotle says. We may safely affirm that it underwent changes in the course of time, like other political systems. The constitution is briefly described by Strabo, and, as we must suppose, such as it existed when he wrote. It was a kind of aristocracy, and the laws were good. There was a Senate or council of six hundred men, who held their places for life and were named Timuchi, a term which probably