Rome and the Unification of Italy (2nd ed.)

Scarcely more than a generation before Octavian (later Augustus) set out to encounter Antony and Cleopatra at the battle of Actium, confidently relying on the firm support of 'all Italy', the Italians were in revolt, with the avowed aim of destroying Rome. The impressive unity displayed in 31 BC was the hard-won product of fifty years of earlier struggle; and that struggle forms the subject of this book. From the second century BC the subject peoples of Italy were motivated by a desire for equal