ROMAN CONQUEST OF ITALY
The principal stages in Roman domination of Italy were as follows:
1. The League of Latin cities was dissolved (348 B.C.).
2. The peoples of the Plain of Campania, liberated from Etruscan and Samnite rule
(343-314 B.C.), were given partial citizen rights.
3. The Samnites and other members of the Southern Confederacy in Apulia and Lucania were conquered (327-290 B.C.). In accomplishing this Rome owed much to the loyalty of the Greek cities on the coast, but had thereafter to defeat Tarentum's claim to dominion in the south, supported by Carthage and by Pyrrhus, king of Epirus, who invaded Italy from beyond the Adriatic.
4. The Etruscan cities resisted long, and were subdued gradually : Veii in 396 B.C. and the last in 295 B.C.; the Umbrians offered little resistance to Rome. These two peoples formed the Northern Confederates.
5. The Greek city-states of Campania and the south were recognized as specially privileged allies with equal rights. As most of them were ports and commanded the forests of their hinterland, they formed the nucleus of Rome's 'naval allies'. Tarentum, the only recalcitrant, was conquered in 272 B.C., and Rome's new fleet was put to the test in the first Punic War.
6. Common interests with Syracuse, which had created a dominion in Sicily over the other free cities and the more civilized natives, led to the first Punic War with Carthage (264-241 B.C.) and to the annexation of Sicily and Sardinia, which became the first oversea administrations or provinciae. Subject peoples were on a different footing from the free allies of Italy. Yearly governors were sent out, but the principal Greek cities retained much of their local autonomy.
7. In the second Punic War (218-201 B.C.) the Carthaginians invaded Italy through Spain and Provence, and provided a thorough test of the strength of the Roman confederation. The Samnites and also the Greeks of Campania, Tarentum, and Syracuse seceded in vain, and after successful campaigns in Spain and Africa Rome emerged as mistress not only of Italy but of the western Mediterranean. The attempt to circumvent Roman seapower had failed.
8. The Northern Plain (Gallia Cisalpina) was dominated by the Celtic-speaking Gauls. Those south of the Po and also the Ligurian tribes of the Apennines were conquered between 225 and 160 B.C. The frontier of taly, however, remained along the Apennines and the Rubicon stream;
in 49 B.C. Caesar did not enter Italy until he crossed the Rubicon.
9. The Ligurian highlanders along the coast from Genua (Genoa) into Provence were gradually conquered between 220 and 118 B.C. when the Provincia Narbonensis (Provence) was organized as far as the north slope of the Pyrenees. The frontier between Italy and Narbonensis was eventually fixed west of Nicaea (Nice) along the Var.
10. After a civil war between the various members of the Confederation, the whole of Italy south of the Po was incorporated into a single Roman state (90-89 B.C.).
11. The first Emperor Augustus (27 B.C.) incorporated the rest of Gallia Cisalpina north of the Po and as far as the Alpine foothills into Italy as part of the Roman State. The subjection of the tribes of the Alpine foothills was completed by Augustus' establishment of the provinces of Rhaetia and Noricum, which included the non-Gallic peoples of the Alps, with their northern frontiers on the Danube. These never became part of Italy.
The Roman conquest of Italy was greatly influenced by the relief of the country. The first expansion of the Roman State beyond the plain of latium was south-east through the easy Sacco-Liri valley into the Plain of Campania, but the second stage was north-east into the difficult country of Sabina and the Roman Apennines. This was necessary for defence against the hill-folk and to secure the flank of the great military route of the Flaminian Way through the Apennines to the Adriatic coast. Thus the Roman territory formed a block dividing the Peninsula into three sections and separating the Northern and Southern Confederates. Among these the Oscan hillmen of the Central Apennines from the Abruzzi to the Ofanto river, and particularly the Samnites, were the most difficult to control. The greatest campaign was fought for the Benevento gap, where the capital of Samnium lay at Beneventum. The peoples of the open plateaux of Apulia and the scattered Etruscan and Umbrian communities of the Pre-Apennines gave less resistance, though the dense Ciminian forest then covering the North Latin hills at first limited the Roman advance into Etruria. Relatively few fortress-colonies were established in either Etruria or Apulia. By contrast, the inaccessible Ligurians of the Northern Apennines and Lucanian Oscans of the Southern Apennines were subdued only by long campaigns. In the Northern Plain conquest was relatively rapid despite the density of its population; the river Padus (Po) was in the late Republic a political frontier, and the river crossings at Placentia (Piacenza) and Cremona were of considerable strategic importance.
Throughout Roman history the Faminian Way over the Apennines remained the key to the control of Italy. North of it no great Roman road crossed the Apennines until the Via Postumia from Genua. There is a notable similarity between the areas covered by the territory of the early Roman State and by the later medieval states of the Church. Both had the same basic strategic interest in the control of the Flaminian Way.
MILITARY CONTROL AND COLONIES
To protect allied and conquered territory, the only ancient alternatives were either to levy tribute and hire mercenaries, as some Greek cities did, or to enlarge the citizen-force itself. The Romans combined both methods, giving to the Latins and subsequently to other conquered peoples of Italy partial or complete citizenship with the obligation of military service, and exacting military levies from her allies. Tribute was also levied and all military forces were paid. Strategical points in conquered territories were garrisoned by settlements of Roman farmers (coloni), who remained full citizens of Rome, and by similar colonies with 'Latin rights', which, however, had a greater measure of local autonomy than the former. Citizen colonies were originally used to garrison the harbours and ports of Italy and acted as a substitute for a fleet; the havenless nature of the Italian coasts enabled Rome to dispense with a permanent fleet until the outbreak of universal piracy between
90 and 66 B.C. Many famous Italian cities originated as 'colonies'. Later, colonies were established far beyond the limits of Italy. Their influence in diffusing Roman ideas and modes of life was profound, replacing that of Sabellian hill-towns, Etruscan fortresses, and Greek city-states.
ROADS
Communications between Rome and the fortress-colonies were secured by a new device of warfare and policy, military roads, which had bridges, embankments, and even cuttings, and were the speedways of antiquity. The most important (usually named from their builders) were, in approximate order of construction:
Via Latina from Rome into Campania, inland of the Alban hills.
Via Appia (312 B.C.) to Campania by the coast, then either (a) to Tarentum (Taranto) and
Brundisium (Brindisi) or (b) to Rhegium (Reggio) by the Via Poplia (132 B.C.)
Via Salaria (361 B.C.) following the ancient 'salt-road' into the Central Apennines.
Via Falaminia (200 B.C.) to the Adriatic coast at Fanum (Fano); continued by the
Via Aemilia ( 187 B.C.) to Placentia (Piacenza) on the Po.
Via Aurelia (123-108 B.C.) through Etruria to Pisa and Genoa; continued later (a) by the
Via Postumia (148 B.C.) to Placentia; (b) by the Via Julia Augusta through the
Ligurian coastland into Provence.
Via Cassia (170 B.C.) also traversed Etruria.
The main ancient routes across the Alps were those through the Julian Alps, the Brenner, the Splügen, the two St. Bernard passes, and the Mont Genčve. These were mostly built by Augustus
(29 B.C..- 14 A.D.).