Please note that Mommsen uses the AUC chronology (Ab Urbe Condita), i.e. from the founding of the City of Rome. You can use this reference table to have the B.C. dates
It was high time to put
an end to this state of indecision. But the only possible way of
ending it was by converting the client states into Roman provinces.
This could be done all the more easily, that the Roman provincial
constitution in substance only concentrated military power in the
hands of the Roman governor, while administration and jurisdiction
in the main were, or at any rate were intended to be, retained by
the communities, so that as much of the old political independence as
was at all capable of life might be preserved in the form of communal
freedom.
The necessity for this administrative reform could not
well be mistaken; the only question was, whether the senate would
delay and mar it, or whether it would have the courage and the power
clearly to discern and energetically to execute what was needful.
