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Why Rome Won The Great Latin War

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Recovering most of the land it lost in its fight for independence, Rome was initially united with the Latin cities on a basis of equality by Spurius Cassius and was part of the Latin League, where the Latins could appoint the dictators (Editors of Encyclopædia Britannica, 1998). However, as the Romans grew in power, the Latins grew cynical of Rome's ambitions of domination over Latin confederacy and demanded absolute equality with Rome, which, according to William C. Morey (2009a), was "scornfully rejected" (para. 7). As a result, the Great Latin War broke out between Rome and Latium, amid Rome's rejection of the Latins' attempts of independence, and lasted for 2 years between the years 340 to 388 B.C. (Morey, 2009a). Ultimately, Rome won the Great Latin war and started the Roman policy of isolation, breaking up the Latin League to eliminate the frequent Latin revolts through dealing with each Latin town distinctively (Morey, 2009a). The Romans treated the Latin towns differently, as they deemed some of them to qualify for exercising the right of Roman citizenship and the others were only granted partial citizenship or were treated as mere subjects of the Roman Republic (Morey, 2009a). …show more content…

Morey (2009a), "in order to keep in subjection a refractory town, or to form an outpost on the frontier, it was customary to send out a body of citizen soldiers, who occupied the town"

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