=The Allies of Rome.=--The ancient world was divided among a great number of kings, little peoples, and cities that hated one another. They never united for resistance and so Rome absorbed them one by one. Those whom she did not attack remained neutral and indifferent; often they even united with the Romans. In the majority of her wars Rome did not fight alone, but had the assistance of allies: against Carthage, the king of Numidia; against the king of Macedon, the Ætolians; against the king of Syria, the Rhodians. In the east many kings proudly assumed the title of "Ally of the Roman People." In the countries divided into small states, some peoples called in the Romans against their neighbors, receiving the Roman army, furnishing it with provisions, and guiding it to the frontiers of the hostile country. And so in Gaul it was Marseilles that introduced the Romans into the valley of the Rhone; it was the people of Autun (the Ædui) who permitted them to establish themselves in the heart of the land. =Motives of Conquest.=--The Romans did not from the first have the purpose to conquer the world. Even after winning Italy and Carthage they waited a century before subjecting the Orient which really laid itself at their feet. They conquered, it appears, without predetermined plan, and because they all had interest in conquest. The magistrates who were leaders of the armies saw in conquest a means of securing the honors of the triumph and the surest instrument for making themselves popular. The most powerful statesmen in Rome, Papirius, Fabius, the two Scipios, Cato, Marius, Sulla, Pompey, Cæsar, and Crassus, were victorious generals. The nobles who composed the Senate gained by the increase of Roman subjects, and with these they allied themselves as governors to receive their homage and their presents. For the knights--that is to say, the bankers, the merchants, and the contractors--every new conquest was a new land to exploit. The people itself profited by the booty taken from the enemy. After the treasure of the king of Macedon was deposited in the public chest, taxes were finally abolished. As for the soldiers, as soon as war was carried into rich lands, they received immense sums from their general, to say nothing of what they took from the vanquished. The Romans conquered the world less for glory than for the profits of war. EFFECTS OF ROMAN CONQUEST =The Empire of the Roman People.=--Rome subjected all the lands around the Mediterranean from Spain to Asia Minor. These countries were not annexed, their inhabitants did not become citizens of Rome, nor their territory Roman territory. They remained aliens entering simply into the Roman empire, that is, under the domination of the Roman people. In just the same way today the Hindoos are not citizens but subjects of England; India is a part, not of England, but of the British Empire.