Dish In Genucilia Ware, Rome's answer to Greek-style painted pottery (fourth century B.C.). Both the female head wearing a
diadem and the wave pattern round the rim are favourite motifs of the Genucilia potters.
The Roman link with Campania was both symbolized and strengthened by the building of the Via Appia from Rome to Capua in
312, by Ap. Claudius Caecus as censor. It is likely that it was in this context that the first Roman silver coinage was produced, on
the Greek model. The late fourth and early third centuries, indeed, saw the beginning of the rapid Hellenization of Rome. It was in
this period that Rome absorbed from the Greek world an interest in the expression of the ideology of victory, a phenomenon which
was not the least of the legacies of Alexander the Great. The consequence at Rome was the introduction of new cults of gods of
war, gods of victory, Victory herself. It was in this period also that the cult of Hercules, heavily dependent on Greek models,
became widespread in the Roman world, evidenced both by the institution by the state of new cults and by the upsurge in humble
offerings to the new hero. At the same time a Greek influence on the material culture of the republic became even more apparent.
At one level there is the sarcophagus of L. Cornelius Scipio Barbatus, found in the tomb of the Scipios on the Via Appia, which
used Greek architectural motifs in its decoration.
At another level, Rome began to produce around 380 her own local pottery, imitated from South-Italian or Etruscan red-figure
pottery, known as Genucilia ware, and then in the early third century a fine black-slip pottery, imitative of Greek metal ware.
The late fourth century saw also the development by Rome of increasingly complex administrative structures, going beyond the
simple adoption of coinage on the Greek model. It was certainly in this period that there evolved the developed structure of five
census classes, each with different fiscal and military responsibilities.
The Defence of Italy and the First War against Carthage
The last serious wars fought by Rome against an Italian people were the wars against the Samnites. These were effectively over by
295, when the Sammtes were defeated at Sentinum in northern Italy, along with Umbrian, Etruscan, and Gallic allies; for the
Umbrian and Etruscan cities which remained independent had decided to make one last attempt to assert their freedom, while some
of the Gallic tribes of the Po valley had decided to attempt to repeat the success of 390. Fifteen years later the Romans met their