The ancient Roman Republic was not a very democratic place to live in at all. Might was right, and there was a very strict hierarchy; the most basic unit was the family and every family had a male head, called the pater familias who had rights and privileges way beyond any that even the most tyrannical petty despots would expect today. All the property accrued by his wife, his sons and his daughters vested in him and he had the absolute control of it; if he's so desired to he could quite legally sell his children into slavery, and he had the power of life or death over his wife, his children and, naturally, his slaves who had just about no rights whatsoever. This was a militaristic society which glorified in battle and in killing; the arena, in which criminals, gladiators, wild animals and anyone else considered to be expendable or an enemy of the State fought and very often died bloodily was an extremely popular form of entertainment not only because the mob loved it but also because it taught all the Roman citizens to celebrate violence and revel in bloodshed. It is a little wonder that the Romans eventually came to dominate the rest of Italy.

The people of central and southern Italy eventually allied themselves alongside the Romans and helped them in several of their wars but many of them began to resent the arrogant and autocratic way in which they were treated. They were considered to be allies but no more than that; they were expected to provide Rome with fighting men and money but they were looked upon as second-class citizens and denied the basic rights of a full Roman citizen. Faint stirrings of rebellion started to worry a number of the Roman ruling classes and eventually one of them, Marcus Livius Drusus proposed a new law giving all of the people of Italy full rights of citizenship; this did not go down particularly well in certain quarters when some of the senators realised that this would mean dilutions of their own privileges so his proposed law was eventually rejected and, in order to discourage anyone else from bringing one forward, he was assassinated in the normal Roman manner. Needless to say, nor one was ever brought to trial for his murder! This was the last straw for many of the allies, and a fairly widespread revolt broke out. The Romans were hopelessly outnumbered, and it wasn't long before they were suffering military defeats so being a pragmatic race the ruling classes decided that discretion was the better part of valour so a law was enacted which conferred the benefits of citizenship on all the people of Italy who had not actually taken part in the revolt. This persuaded many of the rebels to lay down their arms immediately and claim that they had been loyal all along; the remaining rebels, finding their number was shrinking rapidly were soundly defeated.

Unlike in Rome you now have the democratic right to choose the cheapest churchill home insurance or short term car insurance! Had a few financial problems in the past? Don't give up, you can probably still apply for a bad credit mortgage.

Rome up until this time had been a collection of city states similar to the Greek pattern; from this date onwards all of Italy south of the River Po was unified under Roman leadership and Italy became a single nation state.