ABSTRACT
The history of the civilisation of the western Mediterranean differs from that of the ancient world further east. Only between 800 and 500 bc – that is in the period coinciding with the Archaic period of Greek history and the era of the Assyrian, Babylonian and Persian empires in Western Asia – did civilisations comparable with those of the east emerge in the western Mediterranean. They are the civilisations of the Etruscans in central Italy, the Carthaginians in North Africa and the Greeks in the Greek colonies in southern Italy, Sicily and southern Gaul. Around 500 bc, the era of the kings came to an end. Rome founded colonies in most of the lands she conquered. Her custom was to confiscate part of the territory of her subject opponents and to turn it into Roman public land, owned by the Roman state.
