To help the king of Syracuse extract water from the hold of a ship (so the story goes), Archimedes invents the screw now known by his name

A Roman naval victory at Trapani, off the northwest tip of Sicily, completes the blockade of the Carthaginians and ends the First Punic War

At the end of the First Punic War, Sicily becomes Rome's first overseas province

Sardinia and Corsica are annexed by Rome, becoming the second Roman overseas province

Hannibal crosses the Alps with his elephants, beginning the Second Punic War

Hannibal surprises and traps a Roman army on a narrow plain beside Lake Trasimene

Hannibal destroys a Roman army at Cannae, in the most severe defeat ever suffered by Rome

The Romans, after defeating Macedon, announce at the Isthmian Games that all Greek states are now free under Roman protection

Plautus and Terence, in the second and third century BC, create a Roman drama based on Greek originals

The Roman statesman Cato the Elder writes Origines ('Origins'), a history of Rome which survives only in fragments

Rome picks a quarrel with Carthage to begin the Third Punic War

Carthage is destroyed by the Romans at the end of the Third Punic War

A secret ballot is instituted for Roman citizens, who mark their vote on a tablet and place it in an urn

The tribune Tiberius Gracchus is murdered by a mob which includes Roman senators

The tribune Gaius Gracchus is murdered by an armed group, led by a consul, after which 3000 of his supporters are rounded up and executed

A German tribe, the Cimbri, press into northern Italy until they are defeated at Vercellae and driven out of the peninsula

A three-year war, known as the Social War, breaks out between Rome and her Italian allies

The Roman general Sulla takes the unprecedented step of marching upon Rome with a Roman army, to restore his own faction to power

Sulla, campaigning to the east, besieges Athens and then allows his army to loot the city

Sulla takes Rome for the second time, after a battle at the Colline Gate, and then publishes his lethal 'proscriptions'

Cicero, whose speeches become models of oratory, makes his first appearance in a Roman court

Julius Caesar, captured by pirates on his way to Rhodes, warns them that he will crucify them - and later keeps his word

A rebellion by Spartacus and other slaves from a gladiators' training camp at Capua lasts for two years before it is suppressed

Julius Caesar persuades Pompey and Crassus to join him in a political alliance to their mutual advantage, known now as the first triumvirate

At the end of his year as consul, Caesar travels north to become governor of northern Italy and southern France