Another aspect of the Empire was warfare, specifically the Punic Wars with Carthage. It is evident from literary sources that there was an uneven distribution of militaristic powers because we only hear about certain leaders being in control of the militaries. From the Second Punic war, it seems like the only characters involved were Hannibal and Scipio Africanus. The tens of thousands of infantry and cavalry on both sides seem to be disregarded as important factors as to the outcome of the war. Despite this inequality, the ambitious leadership roles gave both sides success. Even though Scipio, who was fighting for Rome, won in the end, Hannibal led a very impressive military career, going into the Second Punic War undefeated. As observed in other histories of Roman Warfare, the common soldier was an insignificant character with little input as far as militaristic strategy is concerned. The question now is what resulted from these wars, where Romans won all three of them. One thing that came after almost every Roman war was expansion into enemy territory. After the first Punic War, the Roman Empire acquired Sicily, a large island off Southern Italy. After the Second Punic war, the Carthaginians lost their territory in Spain. The Roman Empire expanded rapidly after these profitable wars. Yet, when Rome took over new lands, they did not want to enslave the enemy or punish them. They wanted to create more citizens of a lower status, and expand the Empire. Dionysius stated that Romulus’ objective was “not to slay all the men of military age or enslave the rest of the population of the cities captured in war or allow their land to go back to pasturage for sheep, but rather to send settlers thither to possess some part of the country by lot and to make the conquered cities Roman colonies, and even to grant citizenship to some of them”( Dionysius 357). Initially, this may sound like a biased opinion coming from a nationalistic Roman citizenship, but Dionysius is from Greece, and actually did take great pride in his country of origin. Although the new territories were added to the Roman Empire, and some of the people were given citizenship, Rome still had a strong believe in imperium. In a way, they used it for justification to conquer other lands and turn their people into slaves of Rome. They were generally not interested in deriving new patricians and upperclassmen from these conquered territories. The hierarchically -natured Romans used their belief in imperium to justify the annexation of other lands.

The patron/client relationship is another example of social inequality in Rome. This relationship shows that the upper-class, known as the patricians, clearly believed that their clients deserved to be of a lower status due their lack of intelligence. This is seen especially in the writing of Dionysius of Halicarnasus, where he states that “It was the duty of the patricians to explain to their clients the laws, of which they were ignorant.” (Dionysius 341). Focusing on the background of this writer, it can be said that he gives a biased opinion. He is of upper-class status, and presents the clients, whom were plebians, as ignorant citizens needing guidance by those of a higher social status. This seems ironic because the patrician or plebian status was not determined by intelligence or wealth, but ra

Some topics in this essay:
Roman Empire, Monarch Romulus, King Tarquinius, Dionysius Halicarnasus, Italy Romulus, Scipio Africanus, Empire Dionysius, Potter Mattingly, Germany Hitler’s, Roman History, roman empire, form government, lower status, hierarchical society, punic war, social status, distribution powers, social relationships, roman empire expanded, written roman, rule experienced, democratic form government, form government instituted, roman empire people, dominant power mediterranean,