Between 91 and 77 BCE a series of wars were fought in Italy which left the Roman commonwealth in shambles and ultimately brought about its collapse. Traditionally, studies of these conflicts and their leaders have tended to focus on events and individuals separately, although there is a thread which binds them all together: all of these wars in some way involved efforts on the part of Rome s non-citizen Italian Allies first to obtain the rights of Roman citizenship, and then to enhance and preserve those rights once acquired.
