Читать книгу Western Civilization - Paul R. Waibel - Страница 39

Roman victory in the Punic Wars did not make Rome an empire. Some historians suggest that the Roman Republic reluctantly became an empire. There was no plan of conquest. The Romans tried to avoid involvement beyond the Italian peninsula. But Rome soon discovered that peace in the Mediterranean world was vital for Rome's survival and future prosperity. That realization compelled Rome to intervene again and again in disputes between various powers at the eastern end of the Mediterranean Sea. During the last two centuries BC, the Roman Republic became an empire ruling over the whole of the Mediterranean world.

Rome was drawn into the wars between the three successor kingdoms of Alexander the Great's empire – the Kingdom of Macedon, the Seleucid Empire, and the Ptolemaic Kingdom of Egypt. As Rome expanded, it became increasingly dependent upon Egypt for grain. Instability in the East threatened Rome's prosperity. In a series of so‐called Macedonian Wars, fought between 214 and 148 BC, Rome became master of Greece.

When the Corinthian‐led Achaean League revolted in146 BC, Rome crushed the revolt and brought Greece under Roman rule. Though Athens, Sparta, and Delphi remained nominally independent as Roman allies, Corinth was utterly destroyed,³ and the remainder of Greece was placed under the authority of the Roman governor of Macedon. Attalus III (c. 170–133 BC), the last king of Pergamum, willed his kingdom to Rome in 133 BC. It became the Roman province of Asia in 129 BC. Only Egypt and the Seleucid kingdom remained independent, albeit at the mercy of Rome.

Rome, the small city‐state on the banks of the Tiber River in Italy, was now the master of a vast empire that dominated the Mediterranean world. The impact of such success brought a whole host of economic and social changes that fundamentally altered the character of Roman civilization and called into question the ability of republican institutions to govern such a vast empire.