Greece was changed into a Roman province, a few places only, like Sparta and Athens, remaining _liberæ civitates_: the real province was Achaia, the prætor of which had the other Greek districts under his rule as dependencies. Phocis and Bœotia were to pay tribute, a thing which they had never done even in the days of the Macedonian sway. Moreover, they got a uniform constitution, which Polybius had a hand in bringing about, and which is said to have contributed greatly towards the reviving of the country. But the national strength was paralysed by the law, that no one should possess landed property in a state to which he did not politically belong; all the συστήματα of the peoples were done away with; all _concilia_, and most likely, all _connubia_ and _commercia_ were forbidden: the territory of Corinth was added to the _ager publicus_. Polybius now returned to the land of his fathers, to obtain for his unhappy countrymen as fair conditions as he could. But his lot was that of a physician who performs on his wife or his child the most painful and dangerous cure: it is his love which animates him in his task; and yet it is that very love which, in such an operation, rends his heart with thrice the agony that it does that of others. This courage is more than heroism: to bear up under such a trial, where once he had lived happily; not to despair amid the general dismay, and even then only to get the tyrants to keep within bounds; and after all to attain at last to a certain end, truly bespeaks a great soul. The author of a petulant essay on Polybius which was published a few years ago, has only exposed himself by his incapability of understanding the sterling greatness of the man. It was through Polybius that the statue of Philopœmen was restored; and all the concessions which were at all favourable to Greece, were owing to nothing but his endeavours alone. WARS IN SPAIN. VIRIATHUS. DESTRUCTION OF NUMANTIA. In Spain, fortune was so far from smiling on the Romans, that it seemed as if fate wished to remind them of a Nemesis, as the slave did the warrior in his triumph. The Spanish wars may be divided into periods. The first goes down to the end of the second Punic war; the second, to the treaty of Gracchus by which the Romans ruled over Catalonia, Valencia, Andalusia, as well as western Aragon and eastern Castile, and also acquired a kind of supremacy over the Celtiberians. The violation of this peace by the fortification of Segida, called forth a fresh struggle which we may name as the first Celtiberian war: M. Claudius Marcellus had then the command; it lasted three or four years.