The two islands, Sicily and Sardinia in the Later Roman Republic, of very different character, became Rome's first provincial acquisitions as a direct result of its clash with the other great Mediterranean superpower of the third century, Carthage. This chapter discusses the impact of “Rome” make on these two provinces from the third quarter of the third century, when they first came under Roman suzerainty. After the first and second Punic war, the Roman interventions discussed in relation to Sicily–establishment of roads, and introduction of a tax regime and the denarius-based monetary system–equally applied to Sardinia; but what emerges most emphatically is that, as with Sicily, Rome's takeover of Sardinia had no immediate impact on the island from a cultural point of view. The Sardinians were given no such place in the Roman mind, and thus the impact of Rome is less distinctly felt in this former Punic colony.