ProQuest Dissertations - Historia Antigua

After the short but violent Pyrrhic War (280-275), Rome established the Latincolonies of Cosa and Paestum (273) along the Tyrrhenian Sea coast: Cosa in Etruria andPaestum on the erstwhile Greek colony of Poseidonia, which, at the time, was controlledby the Lucani, who had supported Pyrrhus in the war. 30Finally, the Romans founded twosets of Latin colonies split between an effort to control the upper Adriatic coast and thecontinued struggle to separate and subdue the Samnite tribes. In 268 BCE, unknowncommissioners founded Ariminum in the north (see below, p. 65) and Beneventum on theadministrative center of the Hirpini Samnites.Each of these locations proved to be alucrative economic center.Five years later (263), the Romans established Firmum onthe Adriatic and Aesernia in Samnium in order to further isolate the Pentri from theHirpini and Caraceni.After thus surrounding and separating the Samnite tribes fromone another, the Roman colonization of south-central Italy was suspended until thesecond century BCE, as far as we know. 34After Livy's narrative begins again, we have full knowledge of the commissionerswho founded colonies in south-central Italy. The first complement of colonists duringthis period went to supplement the Latin colony of Venusia in 200 BCE. 35Immediately30 Livy Per. 14; Veil. Pat. 1.14.5. Cf. Salmon (1970), pp. 62-3.31 Livy Per. 15; Livy 9.27.14; Veil. Pat. 1.14.7; Eutr. 2.16. Cf. Salmon (1970), p. 63.32 Frayn (1993), pp. 40, 44 (Ariminum) and 40-41,49-52, 91 (Beneventum). Beneventum became thecenter for east-west trade in the southern Italian peninsula because of the number of roads that passedthrough the city, especially after the veteran settlements of 41 BCE (pp. 49-52).33 Livy Per. 16; Veil. Pat. 1.14.8. Cf. Salmon (1970), p. 6334 Salmon (1970, p. 65) finds it surprising that there is a gap in Roman colonization between 237 and 218BCE, since he sees 237 as the beginning of systematic Roman conquest. The underlying assumption is thatthe colonies were a means of imperial expansion, instead of, for example, a defensive maneuver. While Iadmit that colonies have strategic importance, I am not convinced that the Roman senate had embarked onan imperial agenda during the middle Republic. Furthermore, the so-called gap in colonization may merelybe a gap in our knowledge of colonization due to the break in Livy's narrative.35 Livy 31.49.6, Plut. Flam. 1.4.61