Urbanization and Settlement

The primary form of settlement and social organization in many areas of Italy was the city-state. From the seventh century bc onwards, many Latin communities, including Rome, start to develop a distinctive urban identity, as do settlements in Etruria and Campania. By the sixth century bc, all of these regions have flourishing urban centers, with a high degree of social and economic complexity, monumental public buildings and a rich material culture (Barker and Rasmussen 1998; Holloway 1994; Cornell 1995: 96-118). South-east Italy also starts to develop towards an urbanized society in the sixth century. Settlements grow rapidly in size and complexity, and by the fourth century, many can also be described as cities (Lomas 1993; Herring 2000). However, the form of city which develops is in many cases very different from that of the Greeks and to some extent, the Romans.

In most parts of Italy, the beginnings of urbanization are marked by an increase in the number of inhabited sites in a particular region, and also a growth in the size and complexity of the larger settlements. These in many cases go on to develop into urban centers, controlling the surrounding territory and its population. Many of them adopted a formal use of space which is very different from that of the Greco-Roman city which forms a single cohesive area of habitation in which all major functions of civic life take place. Areas of housing were often arranged in small groups, sometimes with an associated burial plot, separated by a small distance from the next group, but within an overall city boundary. These may represent family enclaves with the city. Religious sanctuaries were arranged in various ways. In some communities, they were used to reinforce subdivision of the city. Veii, in Etruria, for instance, had a temple for each of the main enclaves of population within the boundary (Torelli 1982: 1522; Barker and Rasmussen 1998: 219-27). Elsewhere, they were placed outside the city, to delimit that boundary, or on the edges of territory controlled by the city. Este, in the Veneto, for instance, had a complex ritual geography with five sanctuaries placed around the edge of the city, each dedicated to a different deity and with distinctive votive offerings (Balista et al. 2002). The extent to which these religious centers involved monumental temples of the type familiar from Greece varied. In Etruria, Campania, and Latium, monumental temples with distinctive decorations of painted terracotta were constructed, while in some other regions cult centers - particularly in their early phases - consisted of open enclosures containing altars but relatively few permanent stone structures. The sanctuaries of the Veneto seem to have been of this type, despite their rich deposits of votive offerings and obvious importance to the community (Balista et al. 2002). Those of south-east Italy were located in natural features such as caves, or were open enclosures containing tall columns, which may or may not have been the focus of cult activity or been used for the display of sacred objects (Lamboley 1996: 361-66). Many cities also developed important cemeteries, usually located on the edges of cities, for the burial of their more important dead. The best known and most spectacular are those of the Etruscan cities, which included painted tombs buried under large earth mounds, and dominated the approaches to many cities (Barker and Rasmussen 1998: 232-61).

By the end of the fourth century bc, many communities underwent major changes in both their socio-political organization and their physical structures. There was a greater degree of nucleation of cities which had previously had a rather dispersed use of space, and there was a much greater emphasis on formal urban layout and monu-mentalization of buildings. Many communities adopted a more regular street pattern, with a central area for public business analogous to the forum at Rome or the agora of a Greek city. Statistics for the construction of large public buildings in Italy during the fourth to first centuries bc (Jouffroy 1986; Lomas 1997) demonstrate that significant amounts of money were being invested in such projects. Temples and city fortifications were the most frequent building types, but there was an increasing trend towards construction of buildings connected with civic government in the third century and towards the addition of buildings to the forum, providing more formalized settings for the business of ruling the city. In the second and first centuries, particularly in Campania and other areas of central Italy, there was a shift towards buildings used for various forms of civic entertainment. Many communities acquired their first stone theaters at this date, and also baths. In general, this trend towards the development of what we might see as a more Greco-Roman concept of urban life takes place in parallel with the expansion of Roman power and culture, and also increased contacts with the Greek world, but it should not be seen just as a manifestation of Romanization or of Hellenization. Rather, it represents an Italy-wide shift which crosses regional and cultural boundaries.

In Apennine Italy, by contrast, the indigenous form of state organization is non-urban. The Samnites, for instance, maintained a separation between settlements and the focus of various forms of communal or state activity. The population lived

In villages or on farms dispersed throughout their territory (Livy 9.13.7), but each locality (pagus) had a hill fort for defensive purposes, and a religious sanctuary, which acted as a focus not just for sacrifices and festivals, but also for markets, law hearings and assemblies of the local people (Salmon 1965: 78-81; Dench 1995). These seem to have chosen magistrates to govern them in much the same way as a city, and to have been banded together into larger political units, each known as a touto. These in turn seem to have formed a federation, known to modern historians as the Samnite League, which had the power of declaring peace and war (Salmon 1965: 78-81, 95-101). A number of larger and more elaborate sanctuaries probably served as the meeting points of the touto and a particularly large and imposing example at Pietrab-bondante has been identified as a possible headquarters of the Samnite League (Coarelli and La Regina 1984: 230-57). It would be untrue, however, to regard Apennine Italy as either entirely non-urbanized or as more backward in its culture and organization than other regions. Recent research suggests that some sites, such as Larinum, started urbanizing as early as the fourth century bc, and certainly before the Roman conquest (J. Lloyd 1995). Even areas such as central Samnium, Sabine territory, and Picenum, which in some cases did not urbanize until the first century BC, should not be regarded as primitive. It is clear from the evidence of inscriptions, coin legends, and the physical remains of the sanctuaries that communities in these regions had a strong state identity and effective forms of organization which were well adapted to a highland area.