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Dividend Two Directory 19
Page 06
In the south the Lucanians also rose against Rome. The extension of the Roman dominion in the south of the peninsula had brought the state into connection with the Greek cities, which at one period were so numerous and powerful as to give to this part of Italy the name of Magna Graecia.[25] Many of these cities had now fallen into decay through internal dissensions and the conquests of the Lucanians and other Sabellian tribes; but Tarentum, originally a Lacedaemonian colony, still maintained her former power and splendor. The Tarentines naturally regarded with extreme jealousy the progress of the Roman arms in the south of Italy, and had secretly instigated the Etruscans and Lucanians to form a new coalition against Rome. But the immediate cause of the war between the Lucanians and Romans was the assistance which the latter had rendered to the Greek city of Thurii. Being attacked by the Lucanians, the Thurians applied to Rome for aid, and the Consul C. Fabricius not only relieved Thurii, but defeated the Lucanians and their allies in several engagements (B.C. 252). Upon the departure of Fabricius a Roman garrison was left in Thurii.
He continued, however, during his reign, to manifest the peaceful, quiet, and serious character which had led him to enter the monastery, and which had probably been strengthened and confirmed by the influences and habits to which he had been accustomed there. He had, however, a very able, energetic, and warlike minister, who managed his affairs with great ability and success for a long course of years. Ethelwolf, in the mean time, leaving public affairs to his minister, continued to devote himself to the pursuits to which his predilections inclined him. He visited monasteries; he cultivated learning; he endowed the Church; he made journeys to Rome. All this time, his kingdom, which had before almost swallowed up the other kingdoms of the Heptarchy, became more and more firmly established, until, at length, the Danes came in, as is described in the last chapter, and brought the whole land into the most extreme and imminent danger. The case did not, however, become absolutely desperate until after Ethelwolf's death, as will be hereafter explained.
You may today read histories of Europe written by men of worldwide and pre-eminent reputation, professing to tell the story of the development of human society, in which whole volumes will be devoted to the effect of a particular campaign or military alliance in influencing the destinies of a people like the French or the German. But in those histories you will find no word as to the effect of such trifles as the invention of the steam engine, the coming of the railroad, the introduction of the telegraph and cheap newspapers and literature on the destiny of those people; volumes as to the influence which Britain may have had upon the history of France or Germany by the campaigns of Marlborough, but absolutely not one word as to the influence which Britain had upon the destinies of those people by the work of Watt and Stephenson.
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