In the conquests of Philip, the desire of self-preservation and security
seemed to be blended with the ambition natural to princes. He turned his
arms successively to the quarters on which he found himself hurt, from
which he had been alarmed or provoked; and when he had subdued the Greeks,
he proposed to lead them against their ancient enemy of Persia. In this he
laid the plan which was carried into execution by his son.
The Romans, become the masters of Italy, and the conquerors of Carthage,
had been alarmed on the side of Macedon, and were led to cross a new sea in
search of a new field, on which to exercise their military force. In
prosecution of their wars, from the earliest to the latest date of their
history, without intending the very conquest they made, perhaps without
foreseeing what advantage they were to reap from the subjection of distant
provinces, or in what manner they were to govern their new acquisitions,
they still proceeded to seize what came successively within their reach;
and, stimulated by a policy which engaged them in perpetual wars, which led
to perpetual victory and accessions of territory, they extended the
frontier of a state, which, but a few centuries before, had been confined
within the skirts of a village, to the Euphrates, the Danube, the Weser,
the Forth, and the Ocean.
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