...Impero"), begins with the death of Sulla, when "in place of a number of small federal republics, there was a single Italian nation, with an agriculture, a commerce, an army, a civilization of its own." Rome was ready to begin the conquest of the world. The new policy was initiated...

...accomplished fact.91 Thus in the midst of the gravest political confusion a Sulla, great historic process was quietly completed. The old Italy, the Italy of Oscans,...nation, with an agriculture, a commerce, an army, a civilization, and culture of its own, welded together into a solid and compact middle class out of...