ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the extent to which the phenomenon of Roman colonisation on the coasts of Italy before the First Punic War might directly or indirectly be linked with certain ancient reports about piracy in the western Mediterranean during the fourth and early third centuries bc. It discusses Pontiae as a colony in a coastal area and thus in the context of other littoral settlements which Rome established between the mid-fourth century and her first war with Carthage. Despite the peripheral place which the archipelago holds in the history of ancient Italy, however, Livy’s notice of the deductio of Pontiae in 313 bc opens a window to discussing the nature of Rome’s early maritime expansion. To a considerable extent, then, the apparent lack of historically plausible explanations for the colonisation of Pontiae is to do with its Latin status or, rather, with modern categorisations of the colonies that were founded by the Roman Republic.
