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Updated: May 23, 2025
And yet it by no means proceeded from the brutality of any single individual, least of all of Mummius, but was a measure deliberated and resolved on by the Roman senate. We shall not err, if we recognize it as the work of the mercantile party, which even thus early began to interfere in politics by the side of the aristocracy proper, and which in destroying Corinth got rid of a commercial rival.
The victorious Roman Generals, Marcellus, Scipio, Flamininus, Mummius, and others, brought to the imperial city, to adorn their triumphs, an immense quantity of Greek sculpture and paintings, of which they robbed the great storehouses of works of art in the temples and stoae of Hellas, Sicily, and Asia Minor.
The Lusitanians sent the standards taken from Mummius to the Celtiberians at once as an announcement of victory and as a warning; and among these, too, there was no want of ferment.
But Mummius, as soon as he got what he thought a favourable opportunity, fought a battle, and was defeated; many of his men fell, and many, flying without their arms, made their escape.
Such was the deliberate decision of the Roman senate; such the order sent to Mummius. At his command the plundering of the city was completed. It was fabulously rich in works of art. Many of these were sent to Rome. Many of them were destroyed. The Romans were ignorant of their value. Their leader himself was as incompetent and ignorant as any Roman general could well be.
But after Polybius had answered this contemptible fellow, neither the consul Mummius nor his lieutenants would suffer him to deface and take away the honours done in memory of so famous and worthy a man, although he had frequently offered great opposition both to Flamininus and to Manius.
Then Scipio, putting on his sandals and robes, immediately went forth from his chamber, and when he had walked a little time in the portico, he met Lælius, and welcomed him and those that accompanied him, namely, Spurius Mummius, to whom he was greatly attached, and C. Fannius and Quintus Scævola, sons-in-law of Lælius, two very intelligent young men, and now of the quæstorian age.
Rubrius, to whom the lot had assigned the conduct of the proceedings on that day, hesitated as to the course which he ought to follow. A bolder spirit Mummius, the man who had been made by the deposition of Octavius, asked that the conduct of the assembly should be handed over to him.
"Take good care that you do not lose these on the way," he said; "for if you do you shall be made to replace them by others of equal value." Rome could conquer the world, but honest Mummius had set a task which Rome throughout its whole history was not able to perform. Thus ended the death-struggle of Greece.
The Lusitanians sent the standards taken from Mummius to the Celtiberians at once as an announcement of victory and as a warning; and among these, too, there was no want of ferment.
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