bable.

4. The operations in the campaign of 537, and still more plainly the
formation of the highway from Arretium to Bononia in 567, show that
the road from Rome to Arretium had already been rendered serviceable
before that time. But it cannot at that period have been a Roman
military road, because, judging from its later appellation of the
"Cassian way," it cannot have been constructed as a -via consularis-
earlier than 583; for no Cassian appears in the lists of Roman consuls
and censors between Spurius Cassius, consul in 252, 261, and 268--who
of course is out of the question--and Gaius Cassius Longinus, consul
in 583.

CHAPTER VII

Struggle between Pyrrhus and Rome, and Union of Italy

Relations between the East and West

After Rome had acquired the undisputed mastery of the world, the
Greeks were wont to annoy their Roman masters by the assertion that
Rome was indebted for her greatness to the fever of which Alexander of
Macedonia died at Babylon on the 11th of June, 431. As it was not too
agreeable for them to reflect on the actual past, they were fond of
allowing their thoughts to dwell on what might have happened, had the
great king turned his arms--as was said to have been his intention at
the time of his death--towards the west and contested the Carthaginian
supremacy by sea with his fleet, and the Roman supremacy by land with
his phalanxes. It is not impossible that Alexander may have cherished
such thoughts; nor is it necessary to resort for an explanation of
their origin to the mere difficulty which an autocrat, who is fond
of war and is well provided with soldiers and ships, experiences in
setting limits to his warlike career. It was an enterprise worthy of
a Greek great king to protect the Siceliots against Carthage and the
Tarentines against Rome, and to put an end to piracy on either sea;
and the Italian embassies from the Bruttians, Lucanians, and
Etruscans,(1) that along with numerous others made their appearance at
Babylon, afforded him sufficient opportunities of becoming acquainted
with the circumstances of the peninsula and of entering into relations
with it. Carthage with its many connections in the east could not but
attract the attention of the mighty monarch, and it was probably one
of his designs to convert the nominal sovereignty of the Persian king
over the Tyrian colony into a real one: it was not for nothing that
a Phoenician spy was found in the retinue of Alexander