THE REPUBLIC. 477 



already jealous and distrustful ; they had now a 

 Monroe doctrine concerning the peninsula : an oppor- 

 tunity occurred, and they stepped out into the world. 

 The first Punic war gave them Sicily, the second Punic 

 war gave them Spain, the third Punic war gave them 

 Africa. Rome also extended her power towards the 

 East. She did not invade, she did not conquer, she 

 did not ask for presents and taxes, she merely offered 

 her friendship and protection. She made war, it is 

 true, but only on behalf of her allies. And so king- 

 dom after kingdom, province after province, fell into 

 her vast and patient arms. She became at first the 

 arbiter and afterwards the mistress of the world. Her 

 legions halted only on the banks of the Euphrates, and 

 on the shores of the Sahara, where a wild waste of 

 sand and a sea-horizon appeared to proclaim that life 

 was at an end. She entered the unknown world 

 beyond the Alps, established a chain of forts along the 

 banks of the Danube and the Rhine from the Black 

 Sea to the Baltic, covered France with noble cities, 

 and made York a Roman town. The Latin language was 

 planted in all the countries which this people conquered, 

 except in those where Alexander had preceded them. 

 The empire was therefore divided by language into 

 the Greek and Latin world. Greece, Asia Minor, 

 Syria, and Egypt belonged to the Greek world : Italy, 

 Africa, Spain, and Gaul belonged to the Latin world. 

 But the Roman law was everywhere in force, though not 

 to the extinction of the native laws. In Egypt, for 

 instance, the Romans revived some of the wise enact- 

 ments of the Pharaohs which had been abrogated by 

 the Ptolemies. The old courts of injustice were swept 

 away. Tribunals were established which resembled 

 .those of the English in India. Men of all races, and 



