Traditionally, foreign affairs come first in histories of the middle Republic, domestic politics in those of the late Republic. Yet, although developments in Rome and Italy came to overshadow all else in the fifty years after the destruction of Carthage, it is wrong to write as if the Romans, as it were, changed trains in 146 B.C. In fact Rome’s expansion abroad, because of the power and wealth it created for both the res publica and individuals and because of the accompanying problems, continued to be the main stimulus for political changes.

Polybius claimed in passages probably written between 167 and 146 that the Romans had become masters of the world with which his history dealt. This did not mean that they administered the whole area or even that they were interested in what was happening in every part, but that ultimately they expected their will to be obeyed in matters affecting their interests here. It was a hegemony that even after 146 was looser than those of the great Hellenistic powers had been in their smaller spheres of influence, but as stern or sterner when Roman power was concentrated on a particular trouble spot. The methods by which this hegemony was exercised have been discussed in the previous volume. There was fighting almost every year in one part of the Mediterranean or another, but more often than not the Romans exerted power without direct recourse to arms. In the territories administered by Rome in the West the focus was the Roman magistrate or pro-magistrate in whose province the territory was. No Roman magistrates were regularly based east of the Adriatic before 148: embassies were here the chief channel of Roman control. Foreign envoys came to winter in Rome bringing complaints from the injured and self-justification from the suspect; in the spring Roman embassies left for foreign parts to investigate problems, reconcile allies and, where necessary, to coerce.

Their effectiveness was mixed. The Romans failed to save Orophernes of Cappadocia in 157 or Prusias of Bithynia in 149; they failed to obtain for Ptolemy Euergetes II the possession of Cyprus as well as Cyrene during the reign of his brother.