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| Italy and the Consequences of the Roman Empire |
By:
stefano sandano |
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Italy had long been a land with marked regional differences in language, economic and social organization, and political and religious life. By the end of the Second Punic War, communities with Roman citizenship were concentrated in Latium, Campania, southernmost Etruria, Sabinum, and a few adjacent areas along the Adriatic coast; those cities possessing full citizenship were mostly nearer to Rome than those with only partial citizen rights. Both levels of citizen community still also maintained much of their original culture, although they did adapt themselves to some Roman forms and procedures. The citizen communities aside, substantial regions of Italyfor example, Etruria, Umbria, Lucania, Samnium, Bruttium, and the Greek cities of the south all remained as allies with their own customs and practices, and no Roman citizen rights. During the second century, however, much of Italy experienced profound changes that disrupted long established political and social practices. Some of the changes stemmed from wartime devastation and from the harsh peace that Rome forced on disloyal allies. Others derived from the movements of people within the peninsula made possible by the greater integration of Italian communities. Still others were consequences of the vast influx of wealth derived from Rome’s wars outside of Italy. At the same time, as the result of warfare, diplomacy, and business dealings, members of the elite throughout Italy gained a closer familiarity with Greece and Asia Minor; the societies they encountered here were older, wealthier, and more complex, and offered attractive models to emulate in many respects.
The Second Punic War and its aftermath imposed severe strain on Rome’s network of alliances and cities with shared citizenship. Some remained loyal, but at great cost in lost lives, devastated farms and fields, and increased internal political tensions. Others abandoned their relationship with Rome, and sought greater freedom of action in an alliance with Hannibal and Carthage. When Rome recaptured the cities of former allies, its commanders unflinchingly ordered the executions of leading citizens and the enslavement of many others. In the course of the arrangements made after the end of the war, moreover, many communities in southern Italy suffered massive confiscations of land, which badly hurt their citizens and their economies. In the second century, too, Roman officials came to involve themselves more deeply in the internal affairs of cities, and to distinguish more sharply between Roman citizens and their Italian allies. By the end of the century, relations between Rome and some of its allies had worsened considerably.
In the Po Valley and in peninsular Italy, Roman officials conducted large scale settlement projects. Immediately after the Second Punic War, commissioners settled veterans of campaigns in Spain, Sicily, and North Africa on some of the land confiscated from rebellious allies. Over the next two decades, the senate and assemblies ordered the establishment of a dozen new colonies, and the reinforcement of five existing ones in the territories of allies they presumably considered to be untrustworthy. During the 180s and 170s, Roman officials established eight more colonies in connection with campaigns in northern Italy, and in 173 they dis-tributed small plots of land taken from the Gauls to Romans and Latins in more scattered settlements, without the formation of any new urban center to serve as the focus of self-government. Altogether, these various projects may have settled as many as 50,000 men and their families in colonies, together with an unknown number of other recipients in the veteran assignments of 200 and in the land distributions of 173. In 180, moreover, Roman officials moved up to perhaps 50,000 Ligures from their homes in northern Italy, and settled them on confiscated land in the south.
Rome as the center of the Roman empire can be seen from your Rome airport shuttle .If you are headed towards the south of Italy, visit ischia last minute |
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