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The first permanent provinces to be annexed were Sicilia in 241 BC and Corsica et Sardinia in 237 BC. Rome started expanding beyond Italy during the First Punic War. 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. The formal annexation of a territory created a province, in the modern sense of an administrative unit that is geographically defined. The territory of a people who were defeated in war might be brought under various forms of treaty, in some cases entailing complete subjection ( deditio). Under the Roman Republic, the magistrates were elected to office for a period of one year, and those serving outside the city of Rome, such as consuls acting as generals on a military campaign, were assigned a particular provincia, the scope of authority within which they exercised their command. The Latin word provincia originally meant any task or set of responsibilities assigned by the Roman Senate to an individual who held imperium (right of command), which was often a military command within a specified theatre of operations. The Latin term provincia also had a more general meaning of "jurisdiction".

That exception was unique but not contrary to Roman law, as Egypt was considered Augustus's personal property, following the tradition of the kings of the earlier Hellenistic period. A later exception was the province of Egypt, which was incorporated by Augustus after the death of Cleopatra and was ruled by a governor of only equestrian rank, perhaps as a discouragement to senatorial ambition. Provinces were generally governed by politicians of senatorial rank, usually former consuls or former praetors. The word province in Modern English has its origins in the Latin term used by the Romans.