Roman expansion (was "...greatest impact on fall of Rep

[Anonymous]

seems like Rome was expanding long before the Punic wars... just a splitting of hairs I suppose, but the Latin League came to mind while I was reading the other posts... Somewhere in there are the Sabines and Etruscans and a bunch of Greek states in the south, but I need to reread the timeline to get the right order of events<br>
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thanks for the forum <p></p><i></i>

[Praefectusclassis]

It was. Rome started out as a city state and controlled just about the entire Italian peninsula (minus Cisalpina) at the start of the 1st Punic War.<br>
But with the Punic wars, the wars of expansion started. In 150 years Rome conquered Sicily, Sardinia, Gallia Cisalpina, Africa (current Algeria & Tunisia), Greece, Spain and southern France. <p>Greets<br>
<br>
Jasper</p><i></i>

[Anonymous]

Yeah, I think Rome's amateur-oriented approach to warfare and government could work fairly well as long as they didn't expand much outside Italy, but it really ran into problems as the wars started to go overseas and get further away. Not that it changed right away, but I think that strains on Rome's system start to become evident and gradually something had to give, either some of the Republican institutions or some parts of the empire.<br>
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Aaron <p></p><i></i>