Main Sources:
 o Livy (based on late 3d c. historians)
 o Polybius (c. 200-c. 118 BC)

Basic Chronology
(by 290) Etruria & Central Italy
(280s) Southern Italy
(241) Sicily, Corsica, Sardinia
(202) Spain
(196-168) Macedonia
(146) Greece
(134/3) Pergamon in Asia Minor
(96) Cyrene in N. Africa

Background in the East
Conquests of Alexander the Great (d. 323)
Break-up of empire -> Hellenistic Kingdoms
    Macedon (+ Greece)
    Seleucid Kingdom (Near East)
    Ptolemaic Kingdom (Egypt)

Rome & South Italy
Roman conflicts with Tarentum
Tarentines invite Pyrrhus of Epirus as ally
Rome vs. Pyrrhus (280-275)

"Pyrrhic victory"

The Punic Wars

Carthage
o Founded c. 750 by Phoenicians
o Semitic language
o Dominant commercial power in W. Med.

Treaties w/ Rome in 4th & 3d c.

First Punic War, 264-241
o Naval battles
o Rome gets Sicily, Corsica, Sardinia

Second Punic War, 218-202
o Hannibal invades Italy: Cannae, 216
o Q. Fabius Maximus Cunctator ("Delayer")
o P. Cornelius Scipio Africanus: Zama, 202
o Rome gets Spain

Third Punic War, 149-146
o Destruction of Carthage
o Cato the Elder: "Carthago delenda est"
o Scipio Aemilianus

Rome and the East

Macedonian Wars (vs. Philip V & Perseus)
o 196 Romans "liberate" Greece
o 168 Macedon divided into 4 states
o 146 Macedon Roman province;
  Sack of Corinth
—
133 Pergamon left to Rome by Attalus III

116 Cyrene left to Rome by Ptolemy VIII

'Client Kingdoms' in Near East, Egypt

Explanations for Expansion
o Grand strategy (Manifest Destiny?)
o "Defensive Imperialism"
o Economic motives
o Rome as culture of war