Steele Brand

All the stories about Rome, they start in like the Latium Plain.

And so they've got their really close neighbors, the Etruscans to the north, and they've got their Latins to the south.

And these allies fight each other in really similar format.

And it's a really bloody war.

It's really short.

But at the end of it, Rome establishes itself as the unquestioned head of a federation.

But it's a really different kind of federation because it's a federation that says, okay, we want you to be a part of our new order.

And we're going to start with you Latins who are really close to us.

So we're going to give you Roman law.

We're going to give you Roman privileges.

We'll connect roads to you.

We're going to have colonies.

Some are Latin colonies, which are really nice and posh.

Some are Roman colonies, which are like tiny places nobody wants to go, but they put the poor citizens there.

So they create a system of colonizing, and then they create a system where you can be a treaty ally with Rome, which is great.

You'll be a part of the Federation.

But if you are a Latin ally, you have a better status.

And then if you're like a half-citizen, you have an even better status.

So they started extending Roman law and privileges throughout Europe.

Italy, central Italy, in this really systematic way.