The real government of Rome was in the hands of the Senate, an assembly of nobles and capitalists, who shared between themselves the profits of the Roman conquests. Like all such assemblies, the senators had their good times and their bad; between the second and the third wars with Carthage they so conducted themselves as to impress the imagination of the civilized world; the successes of their armies, their fidelity to engagements, their comparative moderation in conquest, were the wonder of men; admiration for these qualities tempted Judas Maccabæus to engage their assistance in checking the aggressions of the Greek rulers of Antioch; their mediation was invited by the chieftains of Gaul; it was recognized as an honour to them to be called friends of the Roman people, and the honour was attended by practical advantages. Success was followed by intoxication, and the time came when the sense of responsibility was lost in the secure accumulation of riches, and when the unscrupulous venality of the Senate became a by-word. Then the power of Rome seemed to be tumbling to decay; Jugurtha defied her in Africa, Mithridates in Asia, Spain threatened to organize itself against her under a Roman general, the Cimbrians and Teutons swarmed over her borders, her Italian allies made war upon her, she could with difficulty suppress an organized revolt of her rural slaves, at home she was at the mercy of the savage mob in her streets; out of this confusion she emerged victorious, and greater than before. The reason is a simple one; during her period of good behaviour Rome had become the financial capital of the world; she was indispensable, and when she could no longer help herself, others were ready to help her. Left to itself the Roman Senate would have brought ruin on the Roman Empire in the first half of the century preceding the Christian era; but it was not left to itself; its incompetence involved the ruin of too many other interests. We have the story of the Roman generals in full, but nobody has yet written the story of the Roman bankers; we are accustomed to think of the Romans as soldiers and lawyers, we forget that they were also shrewd financiers; with the Romans, as with ourselves, commerce usually preceded the flag; the soldier completed the work begun by the capitalist. We are told that the first war with Mithridates began with a massacre of 80,000 Roman citizens in Asia Minor; the figures are probably exaggerated, but they are not questioned by any Roman historians; it did not appear improbable to them that the Roman residents in Asia should have been so numerous at that comparatively early date; and though part of the country was already a Roman province, and we may assume that the popular fury was largely directed against collectors of taxes, even the rich towns of Asia Minor can hardly have acquired the services of so large a body of revenue officials.