Gli assi geo-politici tra media repubblica e alto impero romano

After the II Punic War the Roman expansionism was directed westwards from Cisalpine Gaul to southern and central Spain; only Pompey shifted the barycenter of Rome's ruling space to the Eastern part of the Mediterranean Sea, but the defeat at Carrhae and the victory at Alesia broke off this trend. From Augustus to Trajan the axe of Roman further expansion stretched from North Africa through Germany and the territories in the north of Danube until the North Sea. After the crisis of the III century the Roman expansionism in the barbaricum ceased, while Constantine's political choices gave the East a prominent role in the last two centuries of the Roman Empire.