By the time of Hannibal's withdrawal in the Second Punic War, the cities in southern Italy who had assisted him had been reduced, but the Gauls in northern Italy who had given some slight support to Hannibal forestalled Roman retribution by a vigorous offensive in 200; three main tribes were involved.

In 197 two consular armies defeated two of these tribes, but the third was not fully subjected until 191 by P. Cornelius Scipio Nasica because of Roman commitments in Spain and the East.

Some colonies were settled in the captured area, but the largest amount was used for individual settlement.

Military roads were built, and by the end of the next fifty years the area had become thoroughly Italianised.

The conquest of Liguria

The barren and impenetrable region of Liguria was important for the protection of the cross-roads from the western coast to Cisalpine Gaul.

The Romans had established two ports at Genua and Luna, and from 187 to 180 two consular armies were regularly sent to the area, not with much success at first because of their unfamiliarity with the mountainous terrain, but they gradually secured the mountain valleys one by one.

An uprising by the Corsicans, in sympathy with Ligurian pirates, was quickly suppressed, but a more serious uprising in Sardinia lasted two years (177-176) until it was put down by Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus (the Elder).

In Liguria there was no systematic settlement, though Luna was reconstituted as a military colony.

A highway to Genua was not completed until 109 because of the ruggedness of the country.

The conquest of Venetia-Istria

The Romans had long been on friendly terms with the Veneti, and to protect them against the mountain tribes they established a colony at Aquileia in 196.

In 178 a Roman consul went beyond his instructions and attacked some Istrian villages, causing war.

After an initial defeat, two campaigns were sufficient to reduce the Istrian peninsula.

There was no systematic settlement of this area, but infiltration by private Roman settlers soon made it an integral part of continental Italy.

The Roman wars in Spain

It was necessary to have Spain under Roman control for two reasons: to prevent the Carthaginians from regaining a foothold there, and to gain the substantial source of revenue which the rich mineral deposits promised.

As there were no strong native principalities through which Rome could exercise control, it was decided to govern Spain directly: two provinces were created in 197 - Nearer (or Hither) Spain (Hispania Citerior) and Further Spain (Hispania Ulterior).

The number of praetorships was increased by two, to provide two additional magistrates each year who could be sent out to govern these new areas (though the line of demarcation between the two provinces and the authority of the two governors was not always that clear).

Although the governors were normally of praetorian rank, in times of difficult warfare in Spain a magistrate with consular authority (ie, authority to command a larger army) could be sent.

The choice of governors of praetorian rank (ie, less experience in military command) was perhaps based on the assumption that the pacification of Spain was virtually complete, but Spain turned out to be a most difficult and unrewarding country in which to carry out military operations, and it was not until 133 that Roman rule was firmly established.

The constant outbreak of fighting was due first to the misgovernment, treachery and rapacity of Roman governors on a people unused to such treatment (see, for example, the actions of Ser. Sulpicius Galba, governor of Further Spain in 151-150: Appian, The Spanish Wars, 59-60 = Document 4/5 (g) = L&R2, pp. 195-6; L&R3, pp. 206-7), and second to the unrest of peoples originally outside the sphere of Roman control, particularly the Lusitanians in the west, and the Celtiberians in the centre.

The Roman armies too found difficulty as they pushed further into the interior with a terrain which suited guerrilla warfare.

For fourteen years from 194 the Romans were fighting both of these tribes until they were defeated in 179 by L. Postumius Albinus and Ti. Sempronius Gracchus.

The latter was able to pacify the whole peninsula except the Atlantic coast because of his personal ascendancy: not since Scipio had a person enjoyed the confidence of the Spaniards.

This settlement lasted twenty years but new uprisings in 154 followed acts of oppression by Roman governors: both tribes took it in turns to keep the Romans in play until 151.

In that year the consul M. Claudius Marcellus was able to conclude a treaty with the Celtiberians which was to last for eight years.

The Romans were now left free to devote their whole attention to the Lusitanians, but several acts of massacre served only to strengthen the Spanish resistance.

From 146 to 141 the Lusitanians, led by Viriathus, had an almost unbroken series of victories against Roman commanders, culminating in the defeat of a large army under the command of Q. Fabius Maximus Servilianus in 140 (Appian, The Spanish Wars, 69 = Document 4/5 (h)).

As a result of that victory, Viriathus secured a treaty through Servilianus, which was ratified by the Roman assembly.

But it was repudiated in the following year by Q. Servilius Caepio, Servilianus' own brother (who had been consul in 140 and who had been sent out to replace him), and Caepio went on to defeat Viriathus and to arrange to have him treacherously murdered - a double example of Roman perfidy and cruelty in Spain (Appian, The Spanish Wars, 70 and 74 = Document 4/5 (i)).

In 139 the Lusitanians finally made their submission, in return for which they were given land.

Their success had earlier induced the Celtiberians to break their treaty in 143, but they were mostly defeated in campaigns in 142 by Q. Caecilius Metellus Macedonicus.

One city, however, continued to hold out - Numantia, and it was to prove the destruction of the reputation of several famous commanders sent against it (for an example, see the account of the defeat of L. Hostilius Mancinus, the consul of 137, in Appian, The Spanish Wars, 79-80 = Document 4/5 (j)).

Finally in 134 the Romans sent their best general at that time, P. Cornelius Scipio Aemilianus, the destroyer of Carthage (see below), to deal with Numantia. Anxious for a further military victory, Scipio had deliberately taken a second consulship in 134 to secure the command against a city which had proved so difficult for others to take.

He surrounded the city with siege fortifications, starved it into unconditional surrender, and set it on fire.

In 123 the Balearic islands, off the eastern coast of Spain, were reduced and placed under the supervision of the governor of Nearer Spain.

The Third Punic War (149-146)

Carthage attempted to abide by the terms of the treaty imposed on it at the end of the Second Punic War, sending its quota of troops to assist Roman campaigns in various parts of the Mediterranean.

The city continued to be commercially, industrially and agriculturally successful, and by 152 had managed to pay off the indemnity imposed in 201.

There was, however, a party in Rome, led by the elder Cato and prompted either by irrational fear and hatred or by competitive economic considerations, which wished to see Carthage destroyed.

Cato is said to have finished every speech in the senate with the phrase censeo Carthaginem esse delendam ("in my opinion Carthage should be destroyed!") (Plutarch, Life of Cato, 25.1-26.1. = Document 4/5 (k) = L&R2, pp. 196-7; L&R3, pp. 207-8).

The neighbouring king of Numidia, Masinissa, took advantage of the terms of the peace treaty to harass Carthage and to take over one by one the possessions left to Carthage along the coast from Morocco to Cyrenaica.

He knew that Carthage could not wage even a defensive war without Rome's permission.

Carthage kept appealing to Rome against Masinissa's provocations, and commissions were sent to arbitrate, but these either decided in favour of Masinissa or left the particular dispute unresolved.

By 154 Masinissa had whittled Carthage down to about one sixth of its former area.

Finally, out of desperation, Carthage started a war with Numidia in 150, thus violating the terms of their treaty and providing the Romans with an excuse to declare war on them in 149.

The Carthaginians were ready to accept any terms of peace, but the Romans kept making heavier an heavier demands, culminating in the requirement that they abandon Carthage for ever and move to an inland site.

The Carthaginians decided that they could do no worse than fight on to the end and prepared to defend their city, which was in an excellent location to withstand a siege and which had thick and strong walls.

The siege dragged on, as the Roman armies sent there were badly disciplined and incompetently led.

Eventually the Romans sent as commander a young man who had already distinguished himself in the campaigning - P. Cornelius Scipio Aemilianus.

He was the son of L. Aemilius Paullus who had defeated Perseus at the battle of Pydna, and he had been adopted by the son of Scipio Africanus, the man who had beaten Hannibal and brought about the end of the Second Punic war (see the genealogical table in the notes on Topic 8).

It was appropriate that the adopted grandson, as it were, of the victor of Zama should be appointed to take the command against Rome's old enemy.

Aemilianus had returned to Rome to stand for election as an aedile, but so impressive were his exploits and so distinguished his family lineage (it is not without suspicion that he played up these advantages in order to secure his own advancement) that a dispensation from the normal rules was granted to allow him to be elected straight into the consulship for 147, though he was only about thirty and therefore some twelve years below the minimum age for that office.

In turn he was appointed to command the army besieging Carthage.

The young consul made a determined attack on the city and finally took it by storm in the spring of 146 (in the same year in which Roman forces in Greece destroyed the city of Corinth).

The battle raged inside the city street by street for six days and nights, with consequent widespread burning and destruction (though the city was not completely levelled, as later writers implied).

The last area to be captured was the citadel of this beautiful old city, and from it some fifty thousand persons emerged, all of whom were sold into slavery.

Following the new policy which had recently been adopted in Macedonia and was soon to be used with Asia, the Romans did not make Numidia a beneficiary of the victory and use a local client-state to do the work of supervising a conquest, but made the territory around Carthage into a new province, to which they gave the name of Africa.

Points for consideration:

Intervention in the Eastern Mediterranean

The reasons for Rome's intervention in the Hellenistic World of the eastern Mediterranean, and for its policies, which ultimately broke down all powers but its own, are disputed.

Points to consider include Rome's attitude to Philip V of Macedon, who had become Hannibal's ally after Cannae, and who seemed to have an aggressive and expansionist policy;
her attitude to the Seleucid kingdom, with its vast potential resources, which rumour probably exaggerated;
the sincerity and purpose of Flamininus' proclamation of 'The Freedom of the Greeks' at the Isthmian Games of 196;
the appeals to Rome by Hellenistic powers, notably Rhodes and Pergamum;
the attractions of power and wealth through wars of conquest;
the possibility that the Romans began to despise the Greeks and the Hellenistic states.

You should also consider the Hellenistic influences on Rome, in art, government, philosophy and religion, science and literature, and through slavery - immense numbers of Hellenised people were enslaved - for example, 150,000 in 167 alone just from the small country of Epirus.

For a narrative of events, see:

The Macedonian Wars
Scullard - pp. 228-281.
Cary and Scullard - pp. 150-160.

The Roman Wars and Acquisitions in Asia
Scullard - consult index under 'Asia Minor', 'Antiochus', 'Eumenes'.
Cary and Scullard, pp. 161-168.

The Conquest of the Western Mediterranean

In the West, Rome naturally retained the conquests which she had made from the Carthaginians in Spain, and thereby gained considerable wealth from tribute and mining, but Rome was also involved in bitter and incessant frontier wars in Spain, which made considerable demands on Roman manpower for most of the 2nd century.

In Italy, the reconquest and settlement of Cisalpine Gaul, which had largely been lost in the Hannibalic War, was not completed until about 180.

Other areas where Rome was involved were Narbonese Gaul, Liguria and Istria, and Numidia and Carthage (where the Third Punic War took place).

For the details, see:

Scullard, pp. 282-308.
Cary and Scullard, pp. 138-149.

General Results of Roman Expansion in the Mediterranean

The Roman conquest of the Mediterranean brought no allies, bound to supply troops or ships, but produced tribute-paying provinces, which had to be governed and defended by Rome (for a description of the machinery for provincial administration, see Scullard, pp. 159-164, 315-321, or Cary and Scullard, pp. 169-176).

This in turn meant an increase in the complexity of government, which tended to strengthen the authority of the Senate, as the standing body of experts, and to weaken the democratic element in the constitution.