344 ELEMENTS OF SCIENCE 



had penetrated to its centre and that there were Greek 

 and Phoenician colonies on its coasts. By 218 B.C., 

 however, the southern half of Spain, with the Balearic 

 Isles, had been conquered by Carthage. But these 

 conquests, by 206 B.C., had passed to Kome, and by 

 130 B.C. all Spain was a Roman province, save its 

 northern mountainous region and Gallicia. 



In 125 B.C. a Homan province, now Provence, was 

 formed in Transalpine Gaul and a colony founded at 

 Aix, while twenty years later the Roman domain reached 

 northwards to Geneva and Toulouse. Any further 

 advance was for a time stopped by a prodigious invasion 

 of northern tribes known as the Cimbri and Teutones 

 who were ultimately routed by the Consul Marius. 



While this enormous extension of the power of the 

 Roman citizens took place, there was at first no parallel 

 extension of their number, for the provincials and allies 

 had no power or voice in the Government, although 

 Rome itself was becoming more democratic by the 

 abolition of patrician privileges. 



The sovereign power was in the hands of an assembly of 

 the people which passed laws and elected magistrates, thus 

 practically electing the Senate, which mainly consisted of 

 men who had filled office. But there was a much worse dis- 

 tinction than an aristocratic one that between rich and 

 poor with which co-existed, manhood citizen suffrage, 

 and thus the sovereign assembly of the people became a 

 turbulent or venal mob. The old Roman citizens grew 

 scarcer from the slaughter of war, while strangers who 

 had been slaves but were emancipated, came, asfreedmen, 

 to take their place. The dissensions which ensued are 

 described in every history of Rome, and amongst them 

 was the so-called sedition which ended in the slaughter 

 of the two brothers named Gracchus in 133 and 123 



