ABSTRACT
In 218 a new struggle broke out between Rome and Carthage, the Second Punic War, which evolved into a coalition war with far-reaching consequences. In every new province they established, the Romans left the local administrative system as they had found it and placed a governor above it, to keep an eye on things. The Romans encouraged an oligarchic form of government in the Greek cities. In the many years of Rome’s expansion between 264 and 121 bc, vast quantities of money, goods and slaves poured into Italy. Within two or three generations this led to major changes in the cities and in rural areas. In the third century bc there must already have been slaves in Italy and Sicily, partly because so many captives and other people subjected in the Punic Wars had been sold into slavery. It was in the second century bc that slavery really expanded in Italy and Sicily.
