From Asculum to Actium

Rome's once independent Italian allies became communities of a new Roman territorial state after the Social War of 91-87 bc. This book examines how the transition from independence to subordination was managed, and how — between the opposing tensions of local particularism, competing traditions, and identities, aspirations for integration, cultural change, and indifference from Roman central authorities — something new and dynamic appeared in the jaded world of the late Republic. The book charts the successes and failures of the attempts to make a new political community (Roman Italy), and...

Rome's once independent Italian allies became communities of a new Roman territorial state after the Social War of 91-87 bc. This book examines how the transition from independence to subordination was managed, and how — between the opposing tensions of local particularism, competing traditions, and identities, aspirations for integration, cultural change, and indifference from Roman central authorities — something new and dynamic appeared in the jaded world of the late Republic. The book charts the successes and failures of the attempts to make a new political community (Roman Italy), and new Roman citizens scattered across the peninsula — a dramatic and important story in that, while Italy was being built, Rome was falling apart; and while the Roman Republic fell, the Italian municipal system endured, and made possible the government, and even the survival, of the Roman empire in the West.