independence. The division of the
country into two provinces showed that the Romans intended to occupy it
permanently, and occasioned a general insurrection.

The Consul M. Porcius Cato, of whom we shall speak more fully presently,
was sent to put down this insurrection (B.C. 195). The whole country was
in arms; but his military genius and indefatigable industry soon
re-established the superiority of Rome. He gained several decisive
victories, contrived to set tribe against tribe, and took native
mercenaries into his pay. The details of his campaign are full of
horrors. We read of the wholesale slaughter of men who had laid down
their arms, of multitudes sold as slaves, and of many more who had put
themselves to death to escape this fate. Cato was not the man to feel
any compunctions of conscience in the performance of what he considered
a rigorous public task. He boasted of having destroyed more towns in
Spain than he had spent days in that country. When he had reduced the
whole of Hither Spain to a hollow, sullen, and temporary submission, he
returned to Rome, and was rewarded with a triumph.

The severe measures of Cato only exasperated the Spaniards. They again
took up arms, and continued to resist the Roman Praetors for the next
sixteen years, till Tib. Sempronius Gracchus, the father of the
celebrated tribunes, after gaining several brilliant victories over the
Celtiberians, granted them an honorable peace. By his wise measures and
conciliatory conduct he won the affections of the natives, and induced
them to submit to the Roman supremacy (B.C. 179).

It remains to mention two other wars in the West. The Sardinians and
Corsicans revolted, and held out for two years against the Conqueror of
Spain (B.C. 177-175). But Gracchus effected their complete subjugation,
and brought to Rome so large a number of captives for sale as to give
rise to the proverb "Sardi venales" for any thing that was cheap and
worthless.

The Istrians, near the head of the Adriatic Gulf, had been conquered by
the Romans just before the Second Punic War. But their complete
subjugation was now necessary, on account of their proximity to the
newly-formed province of Cisalpine Gaul. Accordingly, the Consuls
invaded Istria in B.C. 178, and in the following year the whole people
was reduced to submission.

[Illustration: Temple of Jupiter Capitolinus. (From a Coin.)]

[Illustration: Lictors.]

CHAPTER XVII.

THE ROMAN CONSTITUTION AND