Rome carried out at its close of sending out colonies and building roads in Italy, contributed still more to the larger use of Latin throughout the central and southern parts of the peninsula.  Samnium, Lucania, and the territory of the Bruttii suffered severely from depopulation; many colonies were sent into all these districts, so that, although the old dialects must have persisted for a time in some of the mountain towns to the north of Rome, the years following the conclusion of the Social War mark the rapid disappearance of them and the substitution of Latin in their place.  Campania took little part in the war, and was therefore left untouched.  This fact accounts probably for the occurrence of a few Oscan inscriptions on the walls of Pompeii as late as 63 A.D.

We need not follow here the story of the subjugation of the Greek seaports in southern Italy and of the peoples to the north who spoke non-Italic languages.  In all these cases Latin was brought into conflict with languages not related to itself, and the situation contains slightly different elements from those which present themselves in the struggle between Latin and the Italic dialects.  The latter were nearly enough related to Latin to furnish some support for the theory that Latin was modified by contact with them, and this theory has found advocates,[4] but there is no sufficient reason for believing that it was materially influenced.  An interesting illustration of the influence of Greek on the Latin of every-day life is furnished by the realistic novel which Petronius wrote in the middle of the first century of our era.  The characters in his story are Greeks, and the language which they speak is Latin, but they introduce into it a great many Greek words, and now and then a Greek idiom or construction.

The Romans, as is well known, used two agencies with great effect in Romanizing their newly acquired territory, viz., colonies and roads.  The policy of sending out colonists to hold the new districts was definitely entered upon in the early part of the fourth century, when citizens were sent to Antium, Tarracina, and other points in Latium.  Within this century fifteen or twenty colonies were established at various points in central Italy.  Strategic considerations determined their location, and the choice was made with great wisdom.  Sutrium and Nepete, on the borders of the Ciminian forest, were “the gates of Etruria”; Fregellae and Interamna commanded the passage of the river Liris; Tarentum and Rhegium were important ports of entry, while Alba Fucens and Carsioli guarded the line of the Valerian road.