Page:Outlines of European History.djvu/306

 254 Outlines of European History Section 42. The Expansion of the Roman Republic The motive power which brought about the expansion of Rome beyond the limits of the city was largely the necessity of defense against the intrusion of neighboring tribes living out- side Latium, especially the Samnites and their kinsmen, who endeavored to seize the territory of the Latin tribes. The Latins found the leadership and the protection of the city in- valuable under such circumstances, and a permanent league naturally developed uniting the tribes of Latium under the leadership of the city of Rome. The obligation to bear arms, if they owned land, gave to the peasants of Latium the right to demand citizenship, and the men of all the straggling Latin com- munities, over thirty in number, were at length received as Roman citizens. It was herein that the Roman Senate displayed a sagacity which cannot be too much admired. While the Greek city always jealously guarded its citizenship and would not grant it to any one born outside its borders, the Roman Senate con- ferred citizenship as a means of expansion and increased power. As their intruding neighbors, like the Samnites or the Volscians, were thrust back and new territory was thus gained, the Romans planted colonies of citizens in the new lands con- quered, or ultim_ately granted citizenship to the absorbed popu- lation. Roman peasants, obligated to bear Roman arms and having a voice in government, thus pushed out into the ex- panding borders of Roman territory. This policy of agricidtiiral expansion steadily and consistently followed by the Senate finally made Rome mistress of Italy. It w^as a policy which knit together into an invincible structure of government the city and the outlying communities of its weapon-bearing peasants. It gave to Rome an ever increasing body of citizen-soldiers, greater at last than any other state could muster, in the whole ancient world. Curiously enough this nation which was about to include the territory of all Italy remained a city-state, add- ing distant regions of Italy as if they were new wards of the