Roma invicta fate5/25/2023 After defeating the Macedonian and Seleucid Empires in the 2nd century BC, the Romans became the dominant people of the Mediterranean Sea. All of these wars resulted in Rome's first overseas conquests (Sicily, Hispania and Africa) and the rise of Rome as a significant imperial power with less of a focus on an internal Republican system. This conflict erupted into a series of wars, known as the Punic Wars, that lasted for over a century. The two cities were allies in the times of Pyrrhus, who was a menace to both, but with Rome's hegemony in mainland Italy and the Carthaginian thalassocracy, these cities became the two major powers in the Western Mediterranean and their contention over the Mediterranean led to conflict. Carthage was a rich, flourishing Phoenician city-state that intended to dominate the Mediterranean area. In the 3rd century BC Rome faced a new and formidable opponent: Carthage. ![]() The Romans secured their conquests by founding Roman colonies in strategic areas, thereby establishing stable control over the region of Italy they had conquered. The last threat to Roman hegemony in Italy came when Tarentum, a major Greek colony, enlisted the aid of Pyrrhus of Epirus in 281 BC, but this effort failed as well. The Romans then took up arms and defeated the Gauls their victorious general Camillus remarked "With iron, not with gold, Rome buys her freedom." The Romans gradually subdued the other peoples on the Italian peninsula, including the Etruscans. According to later legend, the Roman supervising the weighing noticed that the Gauls were using false scales. The siege lasted seven months, the Gauls then agreed to give the Romans peace in exchange for 1,000 pounds of gold. The Gauls looted and burned the city, then laid siege to the Capitoline Hill. Most Romans had fled the city, but some barricaded themselves upon the Capitoline Hill for a last stand. Brennus defeated the Romans, and the Gauls marched directly to Rome. ![]() On 16 July 390 BC, a Gallic army under the leadership of a tribal chieftain named Brennus, met the Romans on the banks of the Allia River just ten miles north of Rome. In the 4th century BC, the Republic had come under attack by the Gauls, who now extended their power in the Italian peninsula beyond the Po Valley and through Etruria. The consuls had to work with the senate, which was initially an advisory council of the ranking nobility, or patricians, but grew in size and power. The most important magistrates were the two consuls, who together exercised executive authority such as imperium, or military command. ![]() A constitution set a series of checks and balances, and a separation of powers. The Roman Republic was established around 509 BC, when the last of the seven kings of Rome, Tarquin the Proud, was deposed by Lucius Junius Brutus and a system based on annually elected magistrates and various representative assemblies was established. The Etruscans apparently lost power by the late 6th century BC, and at this point, the original Latin and Sabine tribes reinvented their government by creating a republic, with much greater restraints on the ability of rulers to exercise power. ![]() The Etruscans, who had previously settled to the north in Etruria, seem to have established political control in the region by the late 7th century BC, forming an aristocratic and monarchical elite. According to archaeological evidence, the village of Rome was probably founded some time in the 8th century BC, though it may go back as far as the 10th century BC, by members of the Latin tribe of Italy, on the top of the Palatine Hill. The city of Rome grew from settlements around a ford on the river Tiber, a crossroads of traffic and trade.
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