"The project aims to elucidate the character of Roman expansionism and Roman urbanism in the Middle Republic through an analysis of how the Roman conquest affected the physical development of pre-existing urban centres on the Italian peninsula. This will be achieved through the creation of a Geographic Information System (GIS) database of peninsular urban centres that existed between 338 and 150 BC. Structured chronologically, each settlement in the database will be given attributes representing information on their physical development during this period. A series of research questions will be used in an interrogation of the completed database, looking for patterns that might represent the effects of the Roman conquest.Methods applied in small-scale landscape studies (GIS) will be adapted on a much larger scale. Peninsular Italy will be the landscape, populated with known walled centres. The Fellow’s extensive research experience in Roman urbanism of the period in question will be augmented through the acquisition of new computer-based analytical skills. The results of the study will be relevant for the numerous research projects concerned with regional landscapes and individual urban sites in Italy, as well as for scholars interested in broader historical processes connected with Roman expansionism during the period. Once the results are published, the GIS data will be placed in the public domain so that they may be utilised by other scholars in the ERA and beyond who are working on related themes."