Aside from the fact that they were forcibly conquered, how much did being under Roman rule actually affect the average non-roman's life? Were most enslaved or allowed to remain free? Aside from not having voting and government rights were they otherwise treated as an obvious underclass? Would quality of life noticeably improve or worsen? Or did they just tend to see it as one master being traded for another?
A slight majority of the population across much of the ancient world was enslaved by default. For them, Roman rule may have been an improvement. As for the free men...
Rome generally preferred not to come back and sort you out. Once you were defeated, you would be very loosely garrisoned and the tax farmers would set to work.
The genius of Rome was that everyone could become a Roman, and once the fighting died down many of the former enemy leadership did just that. In the western provinces, Romanization was generally a civilizing process. Revolts there were based around taxation or for a change of the Emperor.
In the East, where Greeks and Egyptians and Syrians and Jews and so on had built cities for thousands of years, there were more of what we would call 'independence' movements. The Greeks especially resented the Roman policy of disarmament and provincial peace, which led to the few non-Carthage severe Republican reprisals.