That the Romans did not, at this time and during the ensuing decades, take advantage of their success to incorporate fresh provinces into their empire was partly due to their just appreciation of the fact that the conquest of the Greek world could be better and more easily achieved by breaking it up into isolated and impotent states, and partly to their melancholy experiences in the case of their latest acquisitions. For nearly seventy years after the Second Punic War Roman armies were fighting to maintain Rome’s supremacy over her Spanish provinces, and even then the north and west remained free. From 151 to 133 a fierce rebellion was rampant in southern Spain and Lusitania (Portugal). The feats of the patriotic Viriathus and the desperate defence of Numantia showed the Romans to what extremities valiant races--however well disposed towards them in the first instance--could be driven by their execrable provincial administration. Moreover they were compelled to fight year after year, sometimes against Gauls and Ligurians, sometimes against Illyrians and Dalmatians. Nor was the strength of the Hellenic congeries of states by any means broken. The wretched empire of Syria alone, ruled by worthless monarchs and torn by internal dissensions, was fast falling into utter decay. A word from a Roman ambassador was enough to reduce the cowardly Antiochus Epiphanes to obedience and cure him of his inclination to join the enemies of Rome. But Macedonia was gaining strength under Philip and Perseus, and the latter actually succeeded in bringing about a great coalition of the states of the Balkan peninsula against Rome. In the Third Macedonian War the empire of Alexander was finally destroyed after the victory of Pydna (168 B.C.). Even then Rome refrained from dividing Macedonia and Greece into provinces; nor did she alter her policy until after repeated sanguinary revolts in Macedonia, headed by the pretender Andriscus, and the rebellion of the Achæan League (141-146). After that the turn of the west of Asia Minor soon came, and it received the name of the province of Asia in 133 B.C.