So-called Altar of Domitius Ahenobarbus (early 1st century BC): from Rome. now in the Louvre Museum, Paris

This website describes how, in the space of three centuries (ca. 500 - 200 BC), the Romans expanded their territory from Rome itself to embrace the whole of the Italian peninsular, and how Roman Italy developed thereafter.   I have organised a vast amount of material into four main strands:

1. Romans
   

2. In these pages, I discuss what is known about the Romans’ understanding of their origins, and how their society and its political culture evolved as their hegemony expanded across peninsular Italy.
   

3. Italians
   

4. In these pages, I describe the distinctive cultures of the most important pre-Roman peoples of peninsular Italy before their incorporation into the Roman state.
   

5. Roman Conquest of Italy
   

6. This is a succession of pages, arranged in chronological order, that describe, in parallel the phases in which the Romans
   

7. ✴extended their hegemony over the whole of peninsular Italy during period from ca. 500 BC to the end of the 3rd century BC; and
   

8. ✴incorporated the conquered peoples and their territories into the Roman state.
   

9. Roman Italy
   

10. This is a succession of pages arranged in chronological order, dealing with the period from the final victory over the Carthaginian invaders in 201 BC until the death of the Emperor Constantine in 337 AD.
    

11. Sources
    

12. This page contains brief biographical details of the the most important of our surviving sources for the history of Rome and its conquest of peninsular Italy.