The Political Character of the Classical Roman Republic, 200–151 B.C

In any attempt to understand Roman history the first half of the second century B.C. must have a special place. Victory in the Hannibalic war had laid the foundations of a general dominance of the Mediterranean world, but had hardly yet produced an empire. Outside Italy, only Sicily, Sardinia, and two commands in Spain were normally allotted as provinces for annual magistrates; and this list was not increased by the famous victories in the Greek East, Cynoscephalae, Thermopylae, Magnesia, and Pydna. Roman imperialism is too crude a term for what we can observe between 200 and 151 B.C. Roman dominance