Latin Colonies in 218 B.C.

Latin Colonies — Roman Republic.

Self-governing colonies planted across Italy as strategic strongpoints, settled by Romans and Latins who traded the full citizenship for a generous allotment of land and the standing of a Latin community. By 218 some thirty had been founded — from Ariminum and Cosa guarding the north to Brundisium commanding the crossing to Greece — each a walled town of armed settlers set astride a road or a frontier. Together with the great viae they were the skeleton of Roman Italy: the bulwarks of empire (propugnacula imperii) that held the peninsula fast.