Another was planted at Firmum in Picenum ( 264) to secure
a district recently disturbed. Thus Roman fortresses, holding
important points, were spread over a wider area, and roads con-
necting them, improved as time went on, gave ready communication
with every part of Italy. Moreover Rome now held not only the
Campanian harbours but the two best ports of the South-East,
Tarentum and Brundisium. All the Greek nautical skill remaining
in the ports of the South was at her disposal. Rhegium Locri
Croton and other towns could regain some of their old prosperity
under her protection. And the actual territory of the Republic,
the ager Romanus, had been greatly extended in the course of
a century of conquest by the annexation of forfeited lands. Her
beaten enemies, now her Allies, were split up by colonies (each
with its territory) or by wedges of Roman land driven in between
them. Samnium in particular was so reduced and broken up that
an effective revival of the Samnite confederacy was hardly possible.
But in order to rule Italy with any comfort it was desirable to
increase the number of full Roman citizens. This was probably
the reason why the full franchise was in 268 granted to the Sabines.
We have seen that many of the old Patrician families claimed a
Sabine origin, and there was probably little to be done in the way
of assimilation.

79. But supremacy in Italy brought with it a wider outlook
in foreign relations. As a protector of Greeks Rome came into
touch with the outer world far more than she had done hitherto.
Her alliance with Massalia was of very old standing, and she was
also on friendly terms with Rhodes and with Apollonia on the
Adriatic. And now her new position as a Mediterranean power
was strikingly recognized. In 273 an embassy came from the
court of Alexandria. Ptolemy II Philadelphus had grasped the
meaning of events, and it seems that his proposals were well
received and a treaty made. But Egypt was thriving under
the Macedonian dynasty largely at the expense of the cities of
Phoenicia. Fear of Carthage (for the Cyrenaic province of Egypt
bordered on Punic territory) was felt at Alexandria as well as by
the western Greeks. There was thus a prospect of a conflict
between the two great powers watching each other across the
Sicilian strait, and a certainty that in it Greeks would bear a part
and be deeply interested in the result.

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