[givemELL]

Thanks for posting this one. Reading Livy’s The War with Hannibal now, and, will look for parallels, although this piece is quite good and has had 5 good additive comments already...I imagine POTUS is short on Roman or Greek history.

[lentulusgracchus]

Livy is unreliable. Moderns suspect him of doing "class propaganda" that does not reflect the reality of Roman society, but instead paints this fairy-story picture of "the little town that could", full of virtuous praetors and aediles.

Rome, by inspection of the size of its circuit-wall, the Wall of Servius Tullius, appears to have held something over 100,000 people even in the Early Republican period -- several times the next biggest town in central Italy. It was always a bruiser, a heavyweight among Italian cities, and Rome threw her weight around for over 240 years until Italy was united under her leadership on the eve of her death-match against Carthage.