The history of Roman expansion can be broken down into three stages. Those stages were expanding to the Italian Peninsula, Carthage, and the expansion of the Hellenistic Empires. In the beginning stage of Roman expansion, Rome was simply considered just one city-state. During that time period Rome was able to form treaty with other city states and this formed what was known as the Latin League. Rome used these resources from the surrounding city-states armies, to aid in their plan of expanding. The principal example of this is the well thought out plan of forming these bonds with the other city-states in order to have access to the resources that they need. Although this could be seen in a negative aspect, it was brilliant in the impact that it was able to make in their expanding efforts. With this continued plan of action Rome was able to become one of the major states in the whole of the Mediterranean world. One of the most important aspects that an empire must possess in order to become great is their use of military resources. Rome proved that in this first stage of their expansion efforts, their military prowess would assist them in becoming the powerful empire they intended to …show more content…
Up until this point the power of the Roman empire was quickly spreading, and eventually it spread to the effect that the Roman Empire was called upon to mediate issues that were occurring in various Greek kingdoms. This was an extremely important shift, because it could allow the Roman empire to know the ins and outs of various cities, and this would help them to determine week points in these cities. It was during this time that the Hellenistic kingdoms became client states to Rome. Because of this Rome was now responsible to intervene in much of the affairs of the Hellenistic cities, and Corinth in particular did not agree with the necessary participation of the Roman government. This disagreement caused a revolt from some of the Corinth citizens, and the results were detrimental. The response of the Roman empire was to completely destroy the city of Corinth. What is important to note is that the destruction of Corinth and the Third Punic War took place in the same year. What this resulted in for Rome is that they now gained complete control over both Greek and Carthaginian power all in the same year. The result is that now Rome was the undisputed ruler of the Mediterranean world. Their power had been contested many times, but time after time they responded by continuing to expand their power and