Predating the consolidation of the Pax Augusta as a linchpin of the Principate’s new imperial ideology, the benefits of progressively longer interludes of peace— both for Rome and its provincial subjects in varying degrees— ultimately legitimised its territorial expansion. This paper places the accent on the initial stages of that process. With the overseas expansion of mid-Republican Rome, peace, along with war, gradually became a central aspect of its incipient empire-building ideology.