The Social War was a significant uprising against the Roman state by Rome’s allies in Italy. The conflict lasted little more than two and a half years but it is widely recognised as having
been immensely important in the unification of Roman Italy. Between 91 and 88 BCE a brutal campaign was waged but the ancient sources preserve scant information about the war. In turn, this has
given rise to conflicting accounts of the war in modern scholarship and often contradictory interpretations. This book provides a new and comprehensive reassessment of the events surrounding
the Social War, analysing both the long-term and the immediate context of the conflict and its causes. Critical to this study is discussion of the nexus of citizenship, political rights and
land which dominated much of second century BCE politics. It provides a new chronological reconstruction of the conflict itself and analyses the strategies of both the Romans and the Italian
insurgents. The work also assesses the repercussions of the Social War, investigating the legacy of the insurgency during the civil wars, and considers its role in reshaping Roman and Italian
identity on the peninsula in the last decades of the Republic.