Middle Roman Republic, Between the First and Second Punic Wars (241-218 BC), Introduction

Many roads were constructed radiating anticlockwise from Rome, several of which were based on pre-existing tracks: the Via Appia southeast to Capua (Campania) in 312 BC, extended to Brundisium (Apulia) the embarkation port for ships to Greece in 244 BC; the Via Latina (344 BC) inland rejoined the Via Appia at Casilinum near Capua (Campania); the Via Salaria (361 BC), the Salt Road, on the old trade route, northeast to Castrum Truentinum (Marche); the Via Flaminia (220 BC) north to Ariminum (Emilia-Romagna) built by ⁰¹Flaminius Nepos (fl.232-217 BC); the Via Aurelia (241 BC) northwest to Pisae (Tuscany), and the Via Cassia (154 BC), along the coast and parallel to the Via Aurelia, to Pisa (Tuscany).  

During the war with Carthage, the Roman federation had remained loyal. The loyalty of the Picentes and Sabines was rewarded in 241 BC by the granting of new tribes in the comitia centuriata, the Velina and Quirina respectively, bringing the total up to thirty-five. Falerii, however, had waited until the end of war and then revolted in 241 BC. The consuls returning from Sicily stormed it in six days. Its inhabitants were transplanted to a new site Falerii Novi, half the territory of Falerii was annexed as ager publicus, and a Latin colony was planted at Spoletium on the road to Ariminum and the north. 

In 232 BC the tribune ⁰¹Flaminius Nepos (fl.232-217 BC) presented a bill calling for the distribution of the ager Gallicus Picenus, the Adriatic coastal district south of the Po River conquered from the Senones (1) fifty years earlier, to the veterans of the Punic War. When the Senate rejected his proposal, he took it to the people who ratified it and thus set the precedent that policy could be made outside the Senate.

In 218 BC shortly before the outbreak of war the lex Claudia, preventing senators from owning ships other than small ones in order to limit their engagement in overseas trade, was supported by Flaminius, opposed by the Senate but carried in the Plebeian Assembly by the tribune Quintus Claudius (7).