Italia
Introduction
Italia (the Latin and Italian name for the Italian Peninsula) was the homeland of the Romans and metropole of Rome's empire in classical antiquity. According to Roman mythology, Italy was the ancestral home promised by Jupiter to Aeneas of Troy and his descendants, who were the founders of Rome. Aside from the legendary accounts, Rome was an Italic city-state that changed its form of government from kingdom to republic and then grew within the context of a peninsula dominated by the Gauls, Ligures, Veneti, Camunni and Histri in the North, the Etruscans, Latins, Falisci, Picentes and Umbri tribes (such as the Sabines) in the Centre, and the Lapygian tribes (such as the Messapians), the Oscan tribes (such as the Samnites) and Greek colonies in the South.
The consolidation of Italy into a single entity occurred during the Roman expansion in the peninsula, when Rome formed a permanent association with most of the local tribes and cities. The strength of the Italian confederacy was a crucial factor in the rise of Rome, starting with the Punic and Macedonian wars between the 3rd and 2nd century BC. As provinces were being established throughout the Mediterranean, Italy maintained a special status which made it "not a province, but the Domina (ruler) of the provinces". Such a status meant that, within Italy in times of peace, Roman magistrates exercised the Imperium domi (police power) as an alternative to the Imperium militiae (military power). Italy's inhabitants had Latin Rights as well as religious and financial privileges.
The period between the end of the 2nd century BC and the 1st century BC was turbulent, beginning with the Servile Wars, continuing with the opposition of aristocratic élite to populist reformers and leading to a Social War in the middle of Italy. However, Roman citizenship was recognized to the rest of the Italics by the end of the conflict and then extended to Cisalpine Gaul when Julius Caesar became Roman Dictator. In the context of the transition from Republic to Principate, Italy swore allegiance to Octavian Augustus and was then organized in eleven regions from the Alps to the Ionian Sea.
More than two centuries of stability followed, during which Italy was referred to as the rectrix mundi (queen of the world) and omnium terrarum parens (motherland of all lands). Several emperors made notable accomplishments in this period: Claudius incorporated Britain into the Roman Empire, Vespasian subjugated the Great Revolt of Judea and reformed the financial system, Trajan conquered Dacia and defeated Parthia, and Marcus Aurelius epitomized the ideal of the philosopher king.
The crisis of the third century hit Italy particularly hard and left the eastern half of the Empire more prosperous. In 286 AD the Emperor Diocletian moved Imperial residence undertaking western provinces (later Western Roman Empire) from Rome to Mediolanum. Meanwhile, the islands of Corsica, Sardinia, Sicily and Malta were added to Italy by Diocletian in 292 AD, and Italian cities such as Mediolanum and Ravenna continued to serve as de facto capitals for the West.
The Bishop of Rome had gained importance gradually from the reign of Constantine, and was given religious primacy with the Edict of Thessalonica under Theodosius I. Italy was invaded several times by the wandering Germanic peoples and fell under the control of Odoacer, when Romulus Augustus was deposed in 476 AD. Except for about more than a decade between the end of the Gothic War in mid-550s and Lombard invasion of Italy in 568 when (Eastern) Roman Empire reunited Italy, no single authority was established in Italy as a whole until 1861, when it was reunited by the House of Savoy in the Kingdom of Italy, which became the present-day Italian Republic in 1946.
Characteristics
Following the end of the Social War in 87 BC, Rome had allowed its Italian allies full rights in Roman society and granted Roman citizenship to all the Italic peoples.
After having been for centuries the heart of the Roman Empire, from the 3rd century the government and the cultural center began to move eastward: first the Edict of Caracalla in 212 AD extended Roman citizenship to all free men within the Imperial boundaries. Then, Christianity began to establish itself as the dominant religion from Constantine's reign (306–337), raising the power of Eastern metropolises, later grouped into Pentarchy. Although not founded as a capital city in 330, Constantinople grew in importance. It finally gained the rank of eastern capital when given an Praefectus Urbi in 359 and the senators who were clari became senators of the lowest rank as clarissimi.
As a result, Italy began to decline in favor of the provinces, which resulted in the division of the Empire into two administrative units in 395: the Western Roman Empire, with its capital at Mediolanum (now Milan), and the Eastern Roman Empire, with its capital at Constantinople (now Istanbul). In 402, the Imperial residence was moved to Ravenna from Milan, confirming the decline of the city of Rome (which was sacked in 410 for the first time in almost eight centuries).
History
The name Italia covered an area whose borders evolved over time. According to Strabo's Geographica, before the expansion of the Roman Republic, the name was used by Greeks to indicate the land between the strait of Messina and the line connecting the gulf of Salerno and gulf of Taranto (corresponding roughly to the current region of Calabria); later the term was extended by Romans to include the Italian Peninsula up to the Rubicon, a river located between Northern and Central Italy.
In 49 BC, with the Lex Roscia, Julius Caesar gave Roman citizenship to the people of the Cisalpine Gaul; while in 42 BC the hitherto existing province was abolished, thus extending Italy to the north up to the southern foot of the Alps.
Under Augustus, the peoples of today's Aosta Valley and of the western and northern Alps were subjugated (so the western border of Roman Italy was moved to the Varus river), and the Italian eastern border was brought to the Arsia in Istria. Lastly, in the late 3rd century, Italy came to also include the islands of Sicily, Corsica and Sardinia, as well as Raetia and part of Pannonia. The city of Emona (modern Ljubljana, Slovenia) was the easternmost town of Italy.
Augustan Organization
At the beginning of the Roman Imperial era, Italy was a collection of territories with different political statuses. Some cities, called municipia, had some independence from Rome, while others, the coloniae, were founded by the Romans themselves. Around 7 BC, Augustus divided Italy into eleven regiones, as reported by Pliny the Elder in his Naturalis Historia:
- ~ Regio I -- Latium et Campania
- ~ Regio II -- Apulia et Calabria
- ~ Regio III -- Lucania et Bruttium
- ~ Regio IV -- Samnium
- ~ Regio V -- Picenum
- ~ Regio VI -- Umbria et Ager Gallicus
- ~ Regio VII -- Etruria
- ~ Regio VIII -- Aemilia
- ~ Regio IX -- Liguria
- ~ Regio X -- Venetia et Histria
- ~ Regio XI -- Transpadana
Italy was privileged by Augustus and his heirs, with the construction, among other public structures, of a dense network of Roman roads. The Italian economy flourished: agriculture, handicraft and industry had a sensible growth, allowing the export of goods to the other provinces. The Italian population may have grown as well: three census were ordered by Augustus, also assuming role of Roman censor, in order to record the number of Roman citizens throughout the empire. The surviving totals were 4,063,000 in 28 BC, 4,233,000 in 8 BC, and 4,937,000 in AD 14, but it is still debated whether these counted all citizens, all adult male citizens, or citizens sui iuris. Estimates for the population of mainland Italy, including Cisalpine Gaul, at the beginning of the 1st century range from 6,000,000 according to Karl Julius Beloch in 1886, to 14,000,000 according to Elio Lo Cascio in 2009.
Cities of Italia
- ~ Roma -- The Imperial Capital
- ~ Ostia -- Rome's Primary Port -- Often called the Mouth of Rome
- ~ Neapolis -- Southern Port and Imperial Resort
- ~ Nuvlana -- Municipal Resort of the South
