projectiles." _Scipio_ would have preserved the city, but the Senate was inexorable. With the historian Polybius at his side, the Roman commander, as he looked down on the horrors of the conflagration, sorrowfully repeated the lines of Homer,-- "The day shall come when sacred Troy shall be leveled with the plain, And Priam and the people of that good warrior slain." "Assyria," he is said to have exclaimed, "had fallen, and Persia and Macedon. Carthage was burning: Rome's day might come next." Carthage was converted into a Roman province under the name of _Africa_. DESTRUCTION OF CORINTH.--The atrocious crime of the destruction of Carthage was more than matched by the contemporaneous destruction of _Corinth_. Another rising in Macedonia resulted, in 146, in the conversion of that ancient kingdom into a Roman province. The return to Greece of three hundred Achaian exiles who had been detained in Italy for sixteen years, strengthened the anti-Roman party in Greece, and helped to bring on war with the Achaian league. In 146, after the battle of _Leucopetra_, Corinth was occupied by the consul _L. Mummius_. The men were put to the sword; the women and children were sold at auction into slavery; all treasures, all pictures, and other works of art, were carried off to Rome, and the city was consigned to the flames. The other Greek cities were mildly treated, but placed under the governor of Macedonia, and obliged to pay tribute to Rome. At a later date Greece became a Roman province under the name of _Achaia_. THE PROVINCES.--At this epoch, there were eight provinces,--_Sicily_ (241), _Sardinia_ (238) and _Corsica_, two provinces in _Spain_ (205), _Cisalpine Gaul, Illyricum_ (168), _Africa_ (146), _Macedonia_ (146), and _Achaia_. The first four were governed by _Prætors_. Later, however, the judicial functions of the praetors kept them in Rome. At the end of the year, the prætor, on laying down his office at home, went as _proprætor_ to rule a province. But where there was war or other grave disturbances, the province was assigned to a _consul_ in office, or to a _proconsul_, who was either the consul of the preceding year, or an ex-consul, or an ex-prætor who was appointed proconsul. The provinces were generally organized by the conquering general and a senatorial commission. Some cities retained their municipal government. These were the "free cities." The taxes were farmed out to collectors called _publicans_, who were commonly of the equestrian order. The last military dictator was appointed in 216. In times of great danger, dictatorial power was given to a consul.