] for mutual aid, having
officers of all ranks dispersed amongst them, and for overawing the growth
of insurrectionary movements amongst their neighbors. Acting on this
system, the Roman colonies in some measure resembled the _English Pale_,
as existing at one era in Ireland. This mode of service, it is true,
became obsolete in process of time, concurrently with the dangers which it
was shaped to meet; for the whole of Italy proper, together with that part
of Italy called Cisalpine Gaul, was at length reduced to unity and
obedience by the almighty republic. But in forwarding that great end, and
indispensable condition towards all foreign warfare, no one military
engine in the whole armory of Rome availed so much as her Italian
colonies. The other use of these colonies, as frontier garrisons, or, at
any rate, as interposing between a foreign enemy and the gates of Rome,
they continued to perform long after their earlier uses had passed away;
and Cicero himself notices their value in this view. "Colonias," says he
[_Orat. in Rullum_], "sic idoneis in locis contra suspicionem periculi
collocarunt, ut esse non oppida Italiae sed _propugnacula_ imperii
viderentur.
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