Editing Roman Empire (section)

=== Early Wars ===
Everything above is... suspect to say the least.  But this is the point where we do know things.  Rome was a city built on seven defensible hills.  They were surrounded by tribes that didn't like them, namely the Etruscans.  They fought a bunch of wars with them, and had some internal disputes as well.  In 509 BC, the Roman monarchy was thrown down and replaced by a Republic.  Over the next two hundred years the Republic got better and better at fighting, eventually defeating all the tribes around them.  What made them different was how they treated the losers.  As individual Etruscan tribes and cities were knocked off, they were assimilated into the Republic, ultimately giving the men of those cities more liberty than they'd had previously had.  So Rome didn't so much "conquer" as "expand", taking a system that basically worked pretty well (at least at this scale) and forcing it on their neighbors, who eventually grew to appreciate how well it worked.  But it was working well because at this point the whole of the Republic was still confined to central Italy and could be crossed on foot in a week or two.