Grants of land
were the only means of recompensing their military services. This is the
first example that we have found of soldiers being thus rewarded, and it
consequently initiated a custom which became most frequent especially in
the time of the empire. Upon the conquest of Italy which followed the
expedition of Pyrrhus, the Romans found themselves led into a long series
of foreign wars; Sicily furnished the stepping-stone to Africa; Africa to
Spain; all these countries becoming Roman provinces. As soon as the second
Punic war closed, Hannibal formed an alliance with the king of Macedonia.
A war-cloud rose[18] in the east. The AEtolians asked aid from Rome, and
statesmen could foretell that it would be impossible for Roman armies not
to interfere between Greece and Macedonia. But these countries had been
from ancient times most intimately connected with the orient, _i.e._, Asia,
where the Seleucidae still ruled, so that a war with Greece, which was
inevitable, could not fail to bring on a war with the successors of
Alexander, and, these hostilities once engaged in, who could say where
these accidents of war would cease, or when Roman arms could be laid aside?
In this critical condition it was prudent to attach the soldiers to the
republic by bonds and interests the most intimate, to make them proprietors
and to assure subsistence to their families during their long absence.
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