Rome and the Rise of Its Empire (509–31 BCE)

In 386 BCE Rome was sacked by itinerant Gallic tribes, and was still a regional power of limited relevance, whereas in 146 BCE it had built a powerful Mediterranean empire, able to destroy once-mighty cities such as Carthage and Corinth, and to depose powerful Hellenistic kings. The rise of Rome from a humble city-state to an imperial power able to dominate the Mediterranean area for centuries is in its own right a historiographical problem that has caused profound reflections and debates already from antiquity. This process of conquest and imperialism in the Mediterranean area is inextricably intertwined with the history of the Italian peoples, who were ‘unified’ under Roman rule already in the third century BCE.

This course will look at the political, cultural, and economic dimension of Roman imperialism, the relevant primary sources and the current historiographical debates. Firstly, we will study the motives of Roman aggression and the causes for their success. Secondly, we will also look at the ways in which the Romans understood and conceptualised their imperial practices as ‘self-defence’ and ‘just war’. Thirdly, we will consider the role of the other Italian peoples in the Roman imperial project, and how the peninsula underwent processes of integration and cultural change that was instrumental to, but not necessarily bound with, Roman imperial expansion.

The "Italian question" is one of the key elements for our comprehension of the history of Republican Rome, and it had profound consequences in the social and political crisis which led to the fall of the Republic and the institution of Imperial autocracy towards the end of the first century BCE. How should we understand the dynamics of this long process of integration and the immense change it caused?