Ancient Italy, like Greece, was also dotted with a number of city_states, among which was thatof Rome. Like the Greek city_states, Rome also began as a monarchy, then became an aristocracy, and a republic and finally an empire. By this transformation it repeated, to some extent, the history of depotism of the ancient oriental empire type.
But there were alsodifferences between the two. Unlike the oriental empires, the Roman empires was, to some extent, a city-state writ large. The Roman ruling classes realised very early in their career of conquest and expansion that their vastempire could be preserved by extending the rights and privileges of citizenship to the conquered peoples. So they were made citizens and not subjects. But they were given civil rights and not political, which were confined to the citizens of Rome only.