User:Fornadan/temp/overview
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Roman conquest of Italy was the result of a series of conflicts in which the city-state of Rome grew from being the dominant state in Latium to become to ruler of all of Italy. The first major Roman conquest in historical times came with the final defeat her neighbour Veii in 396 BC. In the second half of the 4th century Rome clashed repeatedly with the Samnites, a power tribal coalition. By the end of these wars Rome had become the most powerful state in Italy. The last threat to Roman hegemony came when Tarentum enlisted the aid of Pyrrhus of Epirus during the Pyrrhic War (282 - 272 BC). By 264 BC Roman conquest of Italy had been completed. (Not including the islands of Sicily and Sardinia and the area north of the river Rubicon, known by the Romans as Cisalpine Gaul, which were not then considered part of Italy proper) Conquered territories were incorporated into the growing Roman state in a number of ways: land confiscations, establishment of colonies, granting of full or partial Roman citizen ship and military alliances with nominally independent states. The successful conquest of Italy gave Rome access to a manpower pool unrivalled by any contemporary state and led the way to the eventual Roman domination of the entire Mediterranean world.