From a city-state on the lower Tiber to the year Carthage and Corinth were destroyed: how Rome came to rule Italy, and then the Mediterranean.
In 509 B.C., by the Roman reckoning, the city drove out its last king. It then ruled a few miles of the lower Tiber. In 146 B.C. its armies destroyed Carthage and Corinth in the same year, and its governors sat in Sicily, Sardinia, Spain, Africa and Macedonia. These two maps follow that growth, first in Italy and then around the Mediterranean.
Italy was not held the way the later provinces were. Part of it became Roman land, settled by citizens and colonies; the rest was bound to Rome by treaties that asked for soldiers, not tribute. The first map marks the difference. The second follows the wars with Carthage and the Hellenistic kings that gave Rome its first provinces. A gold outline marks what changed at each step.
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From a city-state on the lower Tiber to the head of an Italian confederacy, south of the Arno and the Rubicon.
By the traditional date the last king, Tarquin the Proud, is driven out and two consuls are elected each year. Rome's land runs a few miles from the Tiber, perhaps 800 square kilometres. Around it lie the Latin towns, the Etruscan cities and the hill peoples, Sabines, Aequi and Volsci. A treaty with Carthage, which Polybius read on bronze, already names the Latin coast as Rome's.
The Latins fight Rome at Lake Regillus, in 496 by Livy's reckoning, and lose. In 493 Spurius Cassius makes a treaty with them: peace, a joint army, and an equal share of the spoils. A like treaty with the Hernici follows in 486. For a century the allies hold off the Aequi and Volsci, who press down from the hills on Latium.
Veii, the great Etruscan city a dozen miles north of Rome, falls to Marcus Furius Camillus after a siege the tradition makes last ten years, like Troy's. Its land is annexed and shared among Roman citizens, and Rome's territory nearly doubles. During the siege the soldiers are paid for the first time, a sign of campaigns that now keep men from their farms through the year.
A Gallic war band from the Po valley routs the Roman army at the river Allia and sacks the city; only the Capitol holds, and the Gauls leave with gold. Polybius dates the sack to 387, the later Roman reckoning to 390. Rome recovers quickly: it builds a wall of stone, plants Latin colonies at Sutrium, Nepet, Satricum and Setia, and fights the Volsci for their plain.
Called in by Capua against the Samnites in 343, Rome finds its Latin allies in arms behind it. It wins the Latin War (340–338) and dissolves their league. Some towns become Roman, while Tibur and Praeneste stay allies, each bound to Rome alone. Capua and the Campanian towns receive citizenship without the vote. The beaks of Antium's warships are set up on the speakers' platform in the Forum.
The Samnites, a league of highland peoples, contest Campania and the south. In 321 they trap a consular army in the Caudine Forks and send it under the yoke. Rome answers with roads and colonies: Luceria in Apulia (314), the Via Appia to Capua (312), Alba Fucens among the Aequi (303). Peace comes in 304; the Aequi are crushed, and the Marsi, Paeligni and their neighbours make treaties.
In 295 Samnites and Gauls, allied with Etruscans and Umbrians, meet two consular armies at Sentinum, the largest battle yet fought in Italy; the consul Decius Mus, Livy says, devoted himself to death to win it. Samnium is beaten again at Aquilonia (293) and makes peace in 290. That year Manius Curius overruns the Sabines, who receive citizenship without the vote.
Rome drives the Senones from the Adriatic coast (284–283) and plants Sena Gallica on their land; the Etruscan cities, beaten again, accept treaties. Then Tarentum calls in Pyrrhus, king of Epirus, with a professional army and elephants. He beats the Romans at Heraclea (280) and Ausculum (279), at a cost Plutarch made proverbial, and Samnites, Lucanians and Bruttians rise to join him.
Pyrrhus campaigns in Sicily, returns, is checked at Beneventum (275) and sails home. Tarentum surrenders in 272. Picenum is conquered (269–268) and Ariminum founded on the Adriatic; Volsinii in Etruria is stormed and destroyed in 264. Italy south of the Arno and the Rubicon is Rome's, as citizen land or as allies bound to send soldiers. That year the Mamertines of Messana appeal to Rome.
Territories are editorial outlines after Shepherd’s Historical Atlas (1911), plate 29, cut from the Ancient World Mapping Center’s c. 60 BC outline of Italy (ODbL); the borders between the peoples of Italy are approximate, and a people is coloured whole from the date its main towns came to terms. Coastlines and rivers: Natural Earth. Sites: Pleiades.
Rome now led a confederacy that could put more soldiers in the field than any state in the western Mediterranean. The next map widens the frame to the whole sea, where that manpower met Carthage.
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From the first crossing to Sicily to the destruction of Carthage and Corinth: the first provinces, and the kings Rome broke without annexing.
Rome answers the appeal of the Mamertines, Campanian mercenaries holding Messana, and sends a consular army over the strait: its first war outside Italy. Carthage, the Phoenician city of Africa, holds western Sicily, Sardinia and Corsica, and trading towns on the coast of Spain; Hiero of Syracuse rules the southeast of Sicily. In 263 Hiero changes sides and becomes Rome's ally for life.
A land power builds fleets. Rome wins at sea off Mylae (260), loses an army in Africa (255) and whole fleets to storms. In 241 a last fleet, paid for by private loans, destroys the Carthaginian relief convoy off the Aegates Islands. Carthage gives up Sicily and pays an indemnity. Western Sicily becomes Rome's first province, governed after 227 by a praetor sent each year.
While Carthage fights its own mercenaries, Rome seizes Sardinia and Corsica (238) and demands more money; Polybius counts this the truest cause of the next war. In 229 Roman fleets curb the Illyrian queen Teuta and take Corcyra, Apollonia and Epidamnus under protection. Hamilcar Barca, meanwhile, wins Carthage a new empire in Spain; Hasdrubal founds New Carthage and accepts the Ebro as a limit.
Rome turns north and beats the Gauls at Telamon (225) and Clastidium (222), and plants colonies at Placentia and Cremona. In 219 Hamilcar's son Hannibal takes Saguntum, a Spanish town in Rome's friendship. Rome declares war and sends an army to Spain, but Hannibal is already over the Pyrenees and the Alps. In December 218 he beats a consul at the Trebia, and the Po Gauls rise to join him.
Hannibal destroys a Roman army at Lake Trasimene (217) and a larger one at Cannae (216), the worst defeat in Roman memory. Capua goes over to him, then much of the south; Philip V of Macedon makes an alliance with him (215), Syracuse after Hiero's death (214), and Tarentum (212). The Latin colonies hold, and so does central Italy. Rome raises new legions and refuses battle.
Marcellus takes Syracuse (212–211) and Capua is retaken (211). Hasdrubal marches to his brother's aid and is killed on the Metaurus (207). Publius Scipio takes New Carthage (209), drives the Carthaginians from Spain at Ilipa (206) and invades Africa. Recalled to defend his city, Hannibal is beaten at Zama (202). Carthage gives up Spain and its fleet; Masinissa's Numidia becomes Rome's ally.
Two Spanish provinces are formed (197) and the Boii of the Po valley are crushed (191). In Greece, Flamininus beats Philip at Cynoscephalae (197) and proclaims the Greeks free. Antiochus III of Syria, crossing into Greece, is beaten at Thermopylae (191) and Magnesia (190), and at Apamea (188) gives up Asia Minor beyond the Taurus. Rome takes no land there but enlarges its friends, Pergamum and Rhodes.
Philip's son Perseus is beaten at Pydna (168) by Aemilius Paullus. The Macedonian monarchy is abolished and the kingdom split into four republics paying tribute to Rome; Genthius' Illyrian kingdom is broken up the same year. Rhodes, suspected of favouring Perseus, loses its mainland lands. Outside Alexandria a Roman envoy, Popillius Laenas, orders Antiochus IV out of Egypt, and the king obeys.
A pretender, Andriscus, claims the Macedonian throne and is crushed (148); Macedonia becomes a province. When the Achaean League defies Rome, Mummius sacks Corinth (146). The same year Scipio Aemilianus takes Carthage after a three-year siege and razes it; its land becomes the province of Africa. In Spain the Lusitanians and Celtiberians are still at war with Rome, and will be until Numantia falls (133).
Outlines: Ancient World Mapping Center, “Roman Empire c. 60 BC” and “c. AD 200 provinces” (ODbL; after the Barrington Atlas), divided editorially after Shepherd’s Historical Atlas (1911), plate 32: Italy at the Arno–Rubicon line and the Volturnus, Hiero’s kingdom in Sicily, Barcid Spain, and Macedon, Greece and the Illyrian coast. Spain, Numidia and Macedonia are drawn at their later extent, so early limits are too large. Coastlines and rivers: Natural Earth. Sites: Pleiades.
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In 146 Rome governed six provinces: Sicily, Sardinia with Corsica, the two Spains, Macedonia and Africa. None was planned in advance. Each came out of a war begun for other reasons, and each needed a governor with an army. How the Republic managed the men who held those commands, and the soldiers who followed them, is the story of its next century.
Continue: the dominion of Rome, 146–79 B.C. →
Then: the Roman world, 79 B.C.–A.D. 192 →