Roman Expansion
Rome didn't initially set up to conquer the world, but gradually did so anyway. A side effect of its empire-building was the reduction of Republican Rome's democratic policies. Rome started as a state where farmers provided all their families needed and went to war to protect their property. As a result of the expansion a great gap formed separating the rich from the poor in Rome by the end of the third century B.C. The landless poor huddled in tenements in Rome, while the wealthy lived in luxury just a hill away, gaining their wealth from great plantations in the countryside.
The Roman army was a principle reason for Rome's success in expanding its borders. The core of the Roman army was formed by the units called legions. A Roman legion was an infantry unit consisting of heavily armed soldiers, equipped with shields, armor, helmets, spears and swords. In the early republic, the strength of a legion was about 3,000 men; there were 4,800 legionaries in the days of Julius Caesar; the twenty-five legions that defended the empire during the reign of Augustus counted more than 5,000 soldiers. They were the backbone of the Roman army, supported by auxiliary troops. Although in the third century, large cavalry units gradually superseded the legions as Rome's most important force, many of them are attested in the fourth and early fifth centuries.
After becoming the dominant power over most of Italy, Rome fought the Carthaginians in the Punic Wars. The treatiesRome had set up with the nations of Italy had become unimportant in her fight with Carthage. Rome became dictatorial, making difficult demands of her allies. Those who balked or rebelled paid dearly for it, but Rome wasn't originally trying to expand her territory. Mostly she was fighting to defend her friends and allies or because of a treaty violation. Rome fought wars to protect her trade routes against piracy, and came to the aid of the Greeks who opposed Macedon. Then Rome turned north to keep the Gauls from attacking and to protect the northern borders of Italy. To this end Gaul became a Roman province. By the end of the first Punic War, Rome controlled Sicily. By the start of the second, she controlled Corsica and Sardinia.
While Rome was expanding its power base it was becoming less democratic and more an oligarchy. The senate decided some matters without reference to the assembly of the people. The commanders of military units were given increasing terms, and, with them, power. Annual magistrates came from only a few families. The client-patron system meant that the big names received general, popular support. Economically, a select few had been able to profit during the wars by getting state contracts for ships and provisions. With the great loss of life during the Punic Wars, departure from their farms of men who had become professional soldiers, and the increase in acreage taken by the expansion, land became available to those wealthy senators who had the wealth to buy it. They created latifundia (plantations) and destroyed many of the self-sufficient farmers. In Rome, businessmen bought up houses that burned and rebuilt insulae, the Roman tenement buildings to house the new urban poor.
/ Rome's Professional Army