n colonization resembled, far less than that of the Greeks, the
original settlements of this country. Power and dominion were the
objects of Rome, even in her colonial establishments. Her whole exterior
aspect was for centuries hostile and terrific. She grasped at dominion,
from India to Britain, and her measures of colonization partook of the
character of her general system. Her policy was military, because her
objects were power, ascendency, and subjugation. Detachments of
emigrants from Rome incorporated themselves with, and governed, the
original inhabitants of conquered countries. She sent citizens where she
had first sent soldiers; her law followed her sword. Her colonies were a
sort of military establishment; so many advanced posts in the career of
her dominion. A governor from Rome ruled the new colony with absolute
sway, and often with unbounded rapacity. In Sicily, in Gaul, in Spain,
and in Asia, the power of Rome prevailed, not nominally only, but really
and effectually. Those who immediately exercised it were Roman; the tone
and tendency of its administration, Roman. Rome herself continued to be
the heart and centre of the great system which she had established.
Extortion and rapacity, finding a wide and often rich field of action in
the provinces, looked nevertheless to the banks of the Tiber, as the
scene in which their ill-gotten treasures should be displayed; or, if a
spirit of more honest acquisition prevailed, the object, nevertheless,
was ultimate enjoyment in Rome itself. If our own history and our own
times did not sufficiently expose the inherent and incurable evils of
provincial government, we might see them portrayed, to our amazement, in
the desolated and ruined provinces of the Roman empire. We might hear
them, in a voice that terrifies us, in those strains of complaint and
accusation, which the advocates of the provinces poured forth in the
Roman Forum:--"Quas res luxuries in flagitiis, crudelitas in suppliciis,
avaritia in rapinis, superbia in contumeliis, efficere potuisset, eas
omnes sese pertulisse."

As was to be expected, the Roman Provinces partook of the fortunes, as
well as of the sentiments and general character, of the seat of empire.
They lived together with her, they flourished with her, and fell with
her. The branches were lopped away even before the vast and venerable
trunk itself fell prostrate to the earth. Nothing had proceeded from her
which could support itself, and bear up