CHANGES IN NATIONAL IDEALS. The second century B.C. was even more a period of rapid change in all phases and aspects of Roman life. During this century Rome became a world empire, annexing Spain, Carthage, Illyria, and Greece, and during the century that followed she subjugated northern Africa, Egypt, Asia Minor, and Gaul to the Elbe and the Danube (see Figure 18). Rome soon became mistress of the whole Mediterranean world. Her ships plied the seas, her armies and governors ruled the land. The introduction of wealth, luxuries, and slaves from the new provinces, which followed their capture, soon had a very demoralizing influence upon the people. Private and public religion and morality rapidly declined; religion came to be an empty ceremonial; divorce became common; wealth and influence ruled the State; slaves became very cheap and abundant, and were used for almost every type of service. From a land of farmers of small farms, sturdy and self-supporting, who lived simply, reared large families, feared the gods, respected the State, and made an honest living, it became a land of great estates and wealthy men, and the self-respecting peasantry were transformed into soldiers for foreign wars, or joined the rabble in the streets of Rome. [14] Wealth became the great desideratum, and the great avenue to this was through the public service, either as army commanders and governors, or as public men who could sway the multitude and command votes and influence. Manifestly the old type of education was not intended to meet such needs, and now in Rome, as previously in Athens, a complete transformation in the system of training for the young took place. The imaginative and creative Athenians, when confronted by a great change in national ideals, evolved a new type of education adapted to the new needs of the time; the unimaginative and practical Romans merely adopted that which the Athenians had created. THE HELLENIZATION OF ROME. The result was the Hellenization of the intellectual life of Rome, making complete the Hellenization of the Mediterranean world. After the fall of Greece, in 146 B.C., a great influx of educated Greeks took place. As the Latin poet Horace expressed it: Captive Greece took captive her rude conqueror, And brought the arts to Latium. So completely did the Greek educational system seem to meet the needs of the changed Roman State that at first the Greek schools were adopted bodily--Greek language, pedagogue, higher schools of rhetoric and philosophy, and all--and the schools were in reality Greek schools but slightly modified to meet the needs of Rome. _Gymnasia_ were erected, and wealthy Romans, as well as youths, began to spend their leisure in studying Greek and in trying to learn gymnastic exercises.