ABSTRACT
Recent studies of Roman imperialism in the later Republic are abundant,1 and there are classic narratives of her early history.2 Yet it is hard to find many works devoted primarily to the dynamics of the conquest of Italy before the First Punic War,3 and the main concern of this essay will be to identify the structures which led Rome to expand in the period before 264,4 and to discuss their origin, nature, and development; we shall also consider the rather cruder question of
whether or not one should term Rome ‘aggressive’ or ‘imperialistic’ in this period.1
