The aim of this publication is not to provide yet another book on the Roman Empire. Utilizing the conceptual and methodological tools offered by 20th-century social and political thought, it explores the capacities of a Mediterranean community to survive within an ever-expanding geopolitical environment and to devise solutions to its internal contradictions.

This success, beyond various circumstantial factors, owes much to the policy of the Roman ruling class to employ the method of selective inclusion and exclusion of their periodically defeated opponents among the victors of the world.

This publication deals with the creation and the first centuries of life of a city on the Italian peninsula, particularly in the region of Latium. Perhaps the main aim of the effort is ultimately to seek possible approaches to the urban phenomenon in the Mediterranean world during antiquity through the Roman example.

The issue, of course, is extremely broad. How is the phenomenon of the formation of a human group defined that exclusively imposes its political, military, social, and religious rights over a specific geographical area? The pages of the book offer possible answers to this question.