The Romans, trained by the Greeks, were, it is true, the teachers. Under their heavy hand the young Andalusians lost their way among the clouds of Aristophanes, just as we have done ourselves; they spouted the _Tityre tu_, and the _arma virum_, they followed the Odyssey and learned that, in ages as remote to them as they are to us, Ulysses had visited their coast. Indeed the Romans did what they could, and if their pupils surpassed them it was owing to the lack-luster of their own imaginations. But the education of backward Spain was not limited to Greek poets and Augustan bores. Lessons in drawing were given, not as an extra, but as part of the ordinary curriculum. The sciences, too, were taught, the blackboard was brought into use, and Euclid--another Greek--was expounded on the very soil that under newer conquerors was to produce the charms and seductions of Algebra. Added to this, industry was not neglected. The Romans got from them not poets alone, but woolens, calicoes, and barbers too, emperors even. Trajan was an Andalou, so was Hadrian, and so also was that sceptered misanthrope Marcus Aurelius. As for arms, it is written in blood that the Romans would have no others than those which came from Spain. The plebs dressed themselves there. Strabo says that all the ready-made clothing came from Tarragona. From Malaga, which in a fair wind was but six days’ sail from the Tiber’s mouth, came potted herring, fat, black grapes that stained the chin, and wax yellow as amber. From Cadiz came the rarest purple, wine headier than Falernian, honey sweeter than that of Hymettus, and jars of pale, transparent oil. To Iviça the Romans sent their togas; there was a baphia there, a dyeing establishment, which, to be simply charming, needed but the signboard _Morituri te salutamus_. And from the banks of the Betis there came for the lupanars girls with the Orient in their eyes, and lips that said “Drink me.” In this pleasant fashion Rome, after conquering Spain, sat down to banquet on her products. The Imperial City then was not unlike a professional pugilist who is unable to find a worthy opponent; possible rivals had been slugged into subjection. Perhaps she was weary, too. However great the future of a combatant may be, there comes an hour when contention palls and peace has charms. In any event, Rome at that time was more occupied in assimilating her dominions than in extending the wonders of her sway. And it was during this caprice that Spain found her fifty races fused in one. On the distant throne was a procession of despots, terribly tyrannical, yet doing what good they could. In return for flowers, fruits and pretty girls, they gave roads, aqueducts, arenas, games and vice. Claud introduced new fashions; Nero, the saturnalia. Each of the emperors did what he was able, even to Hadrian, who increased the number of Jews. It was during his reign that were felt the first tremors of that cataclysm in which antiquity was to disappear. Rome was so