The history of ancient Italy is frequently examined primarily in terms of Roman conquest and expansion, but the Romans were only one of many different peoples and communities. Ancient Italy was not an ethnic or political unit, but a region of extreme diversity. It contained many different ethnic and cultural groups, each with its own language, culture, economies, and forms of social and political organization, and with a rich history independent of that of Rome (fig. 23.1). Ancient writers name - among others - the Etruscans, Umbrians, Campanians, Messapians, Picenes, Lucanians, Bruttians, Veneti, Raeti, and Samnites, as well as the Celts who settled in parts of northern Italy and the Greeks who colonized the south coast, and many other smaller ethnic/cultural groups or sub-groups whose culture and location remain archaeologically badly attested. Inevitably, the rise of Rome posed important questions for other Italian peoples, and the strategies which they used both to integrate with and to resist the influence of Rome are an essential element in their history from the fourth century bc onwards. Both before and during the period of Roman conquest, however, Italy outside Rome shows a varied and fascinating pattern of social and cultural development. Inevitably, a single chapter cannot discuss these individual cultures in detail, but will aim instead to give an overview of the main ethnic/cultural groups and the major socio-political developments in Italy from the sixth to first centuries BC, although due to constraints of space it will focus mainly on the period before the Roman conquest.
Perhaps an obvious - but by no means trivial - starting point is the geographical diversity of Italy, which had a major bearing on some important social and political developments. The coastal plain along the Tyrrhenian coast was inhabited by a number of ancient groups - Etruscans, Latins, and Campanians, especially, but also a number of smaller and less-well-attested groups such as the Volsci, Hernici, Aurunci and others - who developed forms of state based on the city-state from a relatively
A Companion to Ancient History Edited by Andrew Erskine © 2009 Blackwell Publishing Ltd. ISBN: 978-1-405-13150-6
23.1 The peoples of Italy
Early date (as early as the seventh century bc in many cases), as did parts of north-east and south-east Italy. The fertile plains of Campania, Latium, and southern Etruria were rich and densely populated areas, characterized by a density of urban settlement which was virtually unequalled in western Europe until the eighteenth century. The Adriatic coast also shows a similar pattern, although it was less-heavily urbanized. Unlike Greece, where the natural boundaries of the territory of each city-state tended to be fairly clear, even in regions of fairly dense urban settlement, Italy was topographically divided only by the Apennines. In the lower-lying regions, there were large areas where there were no clear natural boundaries, creating a built-in potential for territorial conflict and inter-state wrangling, despite their fertile territory and natural resources.
In contrast, the Apennines and other upland areas of Italy maintained a loosely federal political organization and pattern of smaller non-urban settlements - a form of organization which is well adapted to a terrain which could support only small concentrations of population in any one place (Salmon 1965: 64-77). On the Adriatic coast, there seems to have been a much more varied pattern, with the development of urbanization during the sixth to fourth centuries in south-east Italy and in the Veneto, but a society based on chiefdoms predominating in Picenum until the period of Roman conquest (Naso 2000). One factor which Italian communities seem to have in common, however, is the development of a strong sense of local culture and identity which remained important until well after the Roman conquest, and in many regions this was linked to the emergence of complex forms of state organization (whether urban or not). The extent to which each particular people or region was conscious of an identity as a specific ethnic group is much harder to determine (see section 2 below and Herring, ethnicity and culture). However, it seems clear that whatever the level of common language and culture within a region, the primary form of identity was that of the state. Some level of inter-state cooperation and organization into loose federations certainly existed, and there is some evidence for the emergence of more general ethnic identities, but these remain relatively weak. The concept of a national identity and of the emergence of political units above and beyond the level of the city-state, or federal equivalent, was largely absent in ancient Italy, even after the Roman conquest imposed a level of integration in the form of Roman domination.
One key issue is that the cultural and ethnic map of Italy was not static. Major changes took place, which have been variously characterized as processes of invasion, migration, or acculturation (Pallottino 1991: 2-55). Probably the best-known example is the ongoing debate over the origins of the Etruscans, whose material culture indicates continuity with the preceding period, modified by intense exposure to a new range of cultural influences from the eastern Mediterranean in the eighth century bc, but whose language is very distinct from anything else spoken in Italy (Barker and Rasmussen 1998: 53-58; Bonfante and Bonfante 2002: 49-57; Ridgway 1986: 634-46). Currently, scholarship leans towards the idea that the Etruscans were indeed an indigenous people, but the language problem remains unresolved, and ancient sources support both indigenous Italian origin and migration from Lydia (D. H. Ant. Rom. 1.30, Hdt. 1.93-96, Strabo 5.2.2-4).
By the late fifth century, there was a rapid expansion of the Oscan-speaking peoples of the central Apennines, which affected much of central and southern Italy. At the same time, the Etruscans, some of whom had migrated into parts of Campania during the sixth century, disappeared from this region. The indigenous populations were to a large extent subsumed into a general Oscanized culture, and much of southern Italy, and in particular the upland regions, was dominated by groups of Oscan origin - Lucanians and Bruttians in Calabria, Campani in Campania, Samnites in the central Apennine heartland, and Vestini, Hirpini, Marrucini, Paeligni, and Frentani in the northern Apennines and along the Adriatic coast (Pallottino 1991: 99-105). However, it is again unclear what processes lay behind these changes. Ancient sources (Livy 4.37, Diod. 12.31.1, 12.76.4) speak of invasion and violent takeover, but it seems much more likely that it was at least in part the result of large-scale migration and cultural changes linked to this (Dench 1997). The impact on the regions affected varies. Almost all adopt the Oscan language, and aristocrats with Oscan names are dominant, while material culture, such as the objects found in burials, and the depictions of the population in visual arts such as painted pottery or frescoes found in some tombs, shows a high degree of Samnite influence (Frederiksen 1984: 135-57; Pedley 1990: 99-108). Despite this common Oscan strand of language and culture, the areas affected soon developed their own cultural and ethnic identities. The Campani and some of the Lucani, who inhabited regions which were already substantially urbanized, retained urban forms of organization, while groups such as the Bruttians who lived in more upland areas lived in smaller and more dispersed settlements (Pontrandolfo Greco 1982: 127-66). Equally, the more southerly Oscan-speaking groups had intensive contact with the Greek colonies along the south coast of Italy, and their culture became markedly more Hellenized than that of the Oscan speakers of the Apennines and central Italy, marked by the adoption of elements of Greek culture such as Greek-style coinage, Greek pottery and material goods, and the use of the Greek alphabet.
Two other areas of Italy which illustrate this fluidity of culture and ethnicity are northern Italy - the Po valley and beyond - and the coast of southern Italy. In the south, Greek migrants begin to arrive in significant numbers by the eighth century BC, settling initially in communities of mixed population such as that at Pithekoussai (mod. Ischia), but eventually forming large and dynamic city-states, which included some of the most prominent cities of the Greek world. Communities such as Sybaris and Tarentum became bywords in antiquity for their wealth and sophistication. In the north, the Veneti of north-east Italy begin to develop a dynamic urban culture from the seventh to sixth centuries, and were open to a wide variety of economic and cultural influences from the Greek world, the rest of Italy, and from continental Europe. In particular, they had close contacts (and probably conflicts) with the Celts who migrated in parts of Lombardy and Picenum in growing numbers from the late fifth century (Witt, the “celts”). As with many migration processes, the ancient sources focus on the aggressive elements of this process, describing it in terms of invasion and conquest, but the archaeological evidence shows a much more complex and nuanced picture of gradual migration, settlement, and cultural interaction, as well as periodic violent incursions.
The Roman conquest and the post-conquest processes of cultural change introduced important new developments, but it was not a linear process of Romanization and did not involve wholesale disappearance of local cultures and identities (Lomas 1996; G. Bradley 1997; Herring and Lomas 2000: 1-19). As Roman power began to expand, complex systems for controlling conquered areas and mediating relations with other states evolved piecemeal, with the result that Italy became a mosaic of territory directly annexed or colonized by Rome, areas in which the indigenous population had received Roman citizenship, and large areas which were only loosely linked to Rome by treaty. Most communities, apart from those which were colonies or were granted citizenship, were in theory independent, although Roman control could be (and was) exercised in some circumstances. Even after 90-89 bc, when
Roman citizenship was extended to the whole of Italy, communities were expected to remain locally self-governing. As a result, Roman Italy, although now a politically unified entity, had a high level of cultural diversity and strong regional identities which coexisted with central control and Roman influence.
World History
