All Spain, except the inaccessible mountain district in
the northwest, now became Roman territory. Many colonists settled there;
traders and speculators flocked to seaports; even the legionaries, quartered in
Spain for long periods, married Spanish wives and, on retiring from active
service, made their homes in the peninsula. Rome thus continued in Spain the
process of Romanization which she had begun in Italy. She was to repeat
this process in Gaul and Britain. Her way was prepared by the sword; but
after the sword came civilization.
ROME AND MACEDONIA
While Rome was subduing the West, she was also extending
her influence over the highly civilized peoples of the East. Roman interference
in the affairs of Macedonia found an excuse in the attempt of that country,
during the Second Punic War, to give aid to Hannibal. It was a fateful moment
when, for the second time, the legion faced the phalanx. The easy victory over
Macedonia showed that this Hellenistic kingdom was no match for the Italian
republic. Macedonia was finally made into a subject state or province of Rome.
Thus disappeared a great power, which Philip had founded and which Alexander
had led to the conquest of the world.
