The outline environment

Most people who use the enumerate environment to produce a syllabus or other long nested lists of short items are dismayed by the amount of space between the items. The outline environment, which is essentially the same as enumerate, suppresses some of this space. It leaves space, however, at the beginning and end of a list, but not a sublist. For example
\begin{outline} \item Rome and Carthage \begin{outline}\item The first Punic wa... ...\it Carthago delenda est} \end{outline}\item Rome in the Adriatic \end{outline}
You should use the outline environment sparingly. For most purposes, even for a list of a few short items, the enumerate environment produces more pleasing results.