In this period king Demetrius the Besieger reigned; who, when Roman privateers had been taken up in the Greek seas, sent the prisoners to the senate, but added the reproach, that a Greek people, which thought itself entitled to the dominion of Italy, and had erected a temple in its market-place to the Dioscuri, the tutelary deities of navigation, allowed pirates to sail out. The letter which exprest these complaints, was of course brought over by an embassy: an opportunity for forming connexions, from which sooner or later an alliance might possibly arise, must have been very welcome to a prince like Demetrius. The privateers belonged to some one of the subject maritime towns, which were infected by the piracy of the neighbouring Etruscans. The Tyrrhenian ships, which had served Agathocles a few years before, were probably privateers, and Tyrrhenian piracy rendered the Ægean sea unsafe, until the Rhodians put an end to it; from which time the power of this new maritime state began. This time falls a little later, and the Greeks may have owed their deliverance from this scourge to the measures, which the Romans were enabled to take after the subjugation of Etruria.

During this period Rome was embellisht with buildings, streets, and important works of art, partly from the booty taken in war, and partly from the fines accruing from the accusations of the ediles.