subjection (deditio). The formal annexation of a territory created a province, in the modern sense of an administrative unit that is geographically defined. Republican-period provinces were administered in one-year terms by the consuls and praetors who had held office the previous year and were invested with imperium. Rome started expanding beyond Italy during the First Punic War. The first permanent provinces to be annexed were Sicily in 241 BC and Sardinia and Corsica in 237 BC. Militarized expansionism kept increasing the number of these administrative provinces until there were no longer enough qualified individuals to fill the posts. The terms of provincial governors often had to be extended for multiple years (prorogatio), and on occasion, the Senate awarded imperium even to private citizens (privati), most notably Pompey the Great. Prorogation undermined the republican constitutional principle of annually-elected magistracies and the amassing of disproportionate wealth and military power by a few men through their provincial commands was a major factor in the transition from a republic to an imperial autocracy. List of republican provinces 241 BC – Sicilia (Sicily) taken over from the Carthaginians and annexed at the end of the First Punic War 237 BC – Sardinia and Corsica; these two islands were taken over from the Carthaginians and annexed soon after the Mercenary War, in 238 BC and 237 BC respectively 197 BC – Hispania Citerior; along the east coast of the Iberian Peninsula; part of the territories taken over from the Carthaginians 197 BC – Hispania Ulterior; along the southern coast of the Iberian Peninsula; part of the territories taken over from the Carthaginians in the Second Punic War 147 BC – Macedonia was annexed after a rebellion by the Achaean League. 146 BC – Africa (modern-day Tunisia, eastern Algeria and western Libya); created after the destruction of Carthage in the Third Punic War 129 BC – Asia, formerly the Kingdom of Pergamon, in western Anatolia (now in Turkey), bequeathed to Rome by its last king, Attalus III, in 133 BC. 120 BC – Gallia Narbonensis (southern France); prior to its annexation it was called Gallia Transalpina (Gallia on the other side of the Alps) to distinguish it from Gallia Cisalpina (Gaul on this same side of the Alps, in northern Italy). It was annexed following attacks on the allied Greek city of Massalia (Marseille). 67 BC – Crete and Cyrenaica; Cyrenaica was bequeathed to Rome in 78