early Rome, 'extremely liberal arrangement for those days.'

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Okay, so UCLA professor Eugen Weber is saying that when early Rome conquered other Italian states, they turned military victory into even greater political victory. They did not slaughter or enslave the people as was common in those days. Now, they did practice divide and rule and didn't necessarily treat each province the same. But Weber is saying, on the whole, each former conquered people could run their own affairs provided that Rome was in control of foreign policy and that the people provided military aid in time of war. And this Weber terms, an extremely liberal arrangement for those days.

Later on, after Rome defeated Carthage in the third Punic War, Rome became an empire and engaged in widespread war for riches and loot, which in a number of ways wasn't even good for Roman citizens.

See starting 11:30 into this video.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TiKL3hxzyro[/youtube]
In English, with Vietnamese subtitles!

(my former university used to have videos of this history series I could check out)