Socii

The terms of the treaty were probably more acceptable to the Latins than the previous type of Roman hegemony, that of the Tarquin kings, as the latter had probably required the payment of tribute and not a simple military obligation.

Beyond this, the central, and in most cases sole, obligation on the ally was to contribute to the confederate army, on demand, a number of fully equipped troops up to a specified maximum each year, to serve under Roman command.

In the century following the Second Punic War, Italy was rarely threatened by external invasion (save by the occasional Gallic or Germanic horde) and Rome and her allies embarked on aggressive expansion overseas, in Spain, Africa and the Balkans.

But, beneath the surface, resentment was building among the socii about their second-class status as peregrini i.e. non-citizens (except for the Latin colonists, who could regain their citizenship by moving to Roman territory).

However, the vast amount of archaeological evidence uncovered since the 1970s suggests that Rome did not assume the characteristics of a united city-state (as opposed to a group of separate hilltop settlements) before around 625.

The king (rex, from root-verb regere, literally means simply "ruler") was elected for life by the people's assembly (the comitia curiata originally), although there is strong evidence that the process was in practice controlled by the patricians, a hereditary aristocratic caste.

But this theory has been dismissed as a myth by Cornell and other more modern historians, who point to the extensive evidence that Rome remained politically independent, as well as linguistically and culturally a Latin city.

In addition, it seems certain that the kings were overthrown c. 500 BC, probably as a result of a much more complex and bloody revolution than the simple drama of the rape of Lucretia related by Livy, and that they were replaced by some form of collegiate rule.

Thus, the replacement of a single ruler by a collegiate administration, which soon evolved into two Praetors, later called Consuls, with equal powers and limited terms of office (one year, instead of the life tenancy of the kings).

This situation changed with the Lex Ovinia (promulgated sometime in the period from 339 to 318 BC), which transferred authority to appoint (and remove) members of the Senate from the Consuls to the Censors, two new Magistrates elected at 5-yearly intervals, whose specific job was to hold a census of Roman citizens and their property.

[20][21] The rise of the Senate's role was the inevitable consequence of the increasing complexity of the Roman state due to its expansion, which made government by short-term officers such as the Consuls and by plebiscite impractical.

The Roman polity exhibited, in the words of T. J. Cornell, an historian of early Rome, "the classic symptoms of oligarchy, a system of government that depends on rotation of office within a competitive elite, and the suppression of charismatic individuals by peer-group pressure, usually exercised by a council of elders.

The impetus to form such an alliance was probably provided by the acute insecurity caused by a phase of migration and invasion of the lowland areas by Italic mountain tribes in the period after 500 BC.

The Wall, whose 11 km-circuit enclosed 427 hectares (an increase of 50% over the Tarquinian city) was a massive project which would have required an estimated five million man-hours to complete, implying plentiful financial and labour resources.

Subsequently, the main thrusts of expansion were southwards towards the Volturno river, annexing the territories of the Aurunci, Volsci, Sidicini and the Campanians themselves; and eastwards across the centre of the peninsula towards the Adriatic coast, incorporating the Hernici, Sabini, Aequi and Picentes.

The prevailing explanation for this explosive expansion, as proposed in W. V. Harris' War and Imperialism in Republican Rome (1979), is that the Roman state was an exceptionally martial society, whose every class from the aristocracy downwards was militarised and whose economy was based on the spoils of annual warfare.

It was a world of continuous struggle for survival, of terrores multi for the Romans, a phrase from Livy that Eckstein uses to describe the politico-military situation in the peninsula before the imposition of the pax Romana.

Graves with weapons and armour were common and captured enemies were often offered as human sacrifice and their severed heads displayed in public, as happened to 300 Roman prisoners at Tarquinii in 358.

Also incorporated sine suffragio were several tribes on the fringes of Latium Vetus that had until that time been long-time enemies of Rome: the Aurunci, Volsci, Sabini and Aequi.

In essence, these rights were similar to the civitates sine suffragio, except that the Latin colonists were technically not citizens, but peregrini ("foreigners"), although they could recover their citizenship by returning to Roman territory.

Coloniae were situated at key geographical points: the coasts (e.g. Antium, Ariminum), the exits to mountain passes (Alba Fucens), major road intersections (Venusia) and river fords (Interamna).

Thus Rome's string of colonies and eventual annexation of a belt of territory across the centre of the Italian peninsula was driven by the strategic aim of separating the Etruscans from the Samnites and interdicting a potential coalition of these powerful nations.

A good case-study of how the Romans employed sophisticated divide-and-rule strategies in order to control potentially dangerous enemies is the political settlement imposed on the Samnites after three gruelling wars.

For some socii, at some periods, primarily the more powerful or aggressive nations that could aspire to Italian hegemony themselves (Samnites, Capua, Tarentum), the costs appeared too high, and these repeatedly took the opportunity to rebel.

Polybius states that the Romans and their allies could draw on a grand total of 770,000 men fit to bear arms (of which 70,000 met the property requirement for cavalry) in 225 BC, shortly before the start of the Second Punic War.

At the Battle of Sentinum (295), where a huge combined army of Samnites and Gauls suffered a crushing defeat, the socii contingents actually outnumbered the 18,000 Romans (4 legions deployed).

This demonstrates a critical element in the success of Rome's military confederation: the socii were so divided by mutual antagonisms, often regarding their neighbours as far greater threats than the Romans, that they were never able to stage a universal revolt.

In the event, he had only mixed success: Even among those city-states of southern Italy that did defect, opinion was often bitterly divided by a class struggle between the aristocracy and the commoners, led by dissident charismatic aristocrats.

Assuming that two-thirds of the Lucani and Bruttii and one-third of the Apulians and little under one third of Campanians and a fifth of the Samnites were on his side, they had zero complete Greeks and the total rebel Italian manpower was c. 150,000 men, to which must be added Hannibal's own Carthaginian army and Gallic allies.

Reinforcements by land from the North, whether of Gauls or other Carthaginians from Spain, were successfully blocked by the Romans, most importantly when they defeated Hannibal's brother Hasdrubal's relief army at the Battle of the Metaurus (207 BC).

Roman Italy around 100 BC. Roman Cives in green, Latini in red, Socii in orange.
Linguistic map of Italy in the sixth century BC. Gallic tribes (in dark blue) had already colonised the region of Piedmont . By 400 BC, they had overrun much of the rest of the Po plain in the North, and Gaulish dialects had displaced Lepontic, Raetic, Etruscan and N. Picene in that region. Raetic survived in the Alps. Note the tiny area occupied by the original Latins
Gate in the Servian Wall of Rome, on the Caelian Hill. The wall, made of massive tufa stone blocks, was built just after Rome was sacked by the Gauls in 390 BC
Site of a typical Etruscan hill town. Civita di Bagnoregio, Lazio , Italy
Silver nomos coin issued by the Greek city of Tarentum in southern Italy, c. 500 BC. The coin is incuse i.e. reverse side is mirror image of obverse. Obverse shows hero Phalanthos riding a dolphin, the traditional symbol of the city, with legend ΤΑΡΑΣ (TARAS), the Greek name for Tarentum
Etruscan tomb mural depicting the ambush of Troilus by Achilles , portrayed as an Etruscan foot warrior and a mounted warrior (mid-sixth century BC. Tomb of the Bulls, Tarquinia , Italy)
Map of the Roman confederation in 100 BC, on the eve of the Social War . Note the patchwork political configuration. The Roman possessions (in grey-blue) straddle the strategic centre of the Italian peninsula and the Tyrrhenian coastal plain. Latin colonies (dark red) are scattered in strategic locations. Other socii (pink) are concentrated in the mountainous interior
Roman copper aes grave coin of the First Punic war era. (Obverse) head of Janus , the two-faced god. (Reverse) prow of a warship, a common motif of coins of this period, and virtually a symbol of the Roman Republic (c. 240 BC)
Roman silver didrachm c. 225 BC. (Obverse) head of Mars , the Roman god of war. (Reverse) horse rearing and legend ROMA. Note club on both sides, likely a reference to Hercules . Until the launch of the denarius c. 211 BC, during the Second Punic War , the Romans used Greek-style drachmae for their silver currency. They were generally minted for Rome in the Greek cities of S. Italy (esp. Neapolis )