Central Italy in Roman times

My three years research project aims at studying the political and constitutional history of the Etruscan and Italic communities of central Italy between the 1st century BC and the beginning of the 2nd century AD. After the extension of the Roman citizenship to all the inhabitants of ancient Italy (90/88 BC) Rome started the so- called Municipalization/Colonization in the Peninsula, i.e a process of territorial, juridical and administrative reorganization of the communities of the novi cives. The Etruscan, Umbrian and the Oscan-speaking communities of central Italy also became municipia and coloniae civium Romanorum. Although their government remains in the hands of local magistrates, these lose epichoric titles and assume the Roman ones, i.e. quattuorviri and duoviri; likewise, the civic councils are now officially called as decuriones/senatus. Jurisdiction, administration, procedures of election of magistrates, building activities, census, etc. in the municipia and colonies were conducted according to the disposals contained in charters/leges, "produced" and assigned by Rome to each single community. The aim of my investigation is to verify how the Etruscan and Italic centres reacted to this process of Romanisation of their institutions, addressing issues like: "were new magistraturesitles adopted immediately and uniformly?"; "what epichoric magistratures did maintain their functions? And if yes, for how long?"; "until when, if ever, did local rights, institutes and uses resist in an almost Romanized environment?". In the last few decades such important questions have been largely discussed by modern historians and jurists, but in relation to other geographical areas and populations of the Roman Empire. One of the merits of the previous project 22063-G18 on Magna Graecia in Roman times and of its continuation-project presented herein is to apply such issues and study approach to the numerous populations of ancient Italy for the very first time. The research will be primarily devoted to the following objectives: 1) Gathering and analysis of all available sources (epigraphic, literary, archaeological) on the subject and drafting of the main chapters of the related monograph. 2) Expansion and updating of the open-access bibliographic database "Verfassungen Altitaliens" (set up in 2007 during a prios FWF project), currently the first and unique internet presence offering to students and researchers as well as to a broad general audience the complete specific literature on the subject. For the continuously collection and updating of modern titles and for their short reviews I will benefit of the scientific co- work of Dr. Jessica Piccinini. She will be also the main responsible for the creation of a new specific website- section Documenta, containing selected epigraphic and literary documentation relevant to the constitutional history of ancient Italy.

During the three-year research project the Project-Leader Doz. L.Cappelletti together with her Scientific Co-Worker Dr. J.Piccinini aimed at gathering and studying all the available evidence - literary, epigraphic, archeological sources - concerning the political, administrative and constitutional history of the Etruscan, Umbrian and Oscan-speaking communities of Central Italy (i.e. the modern regions of Abruzzo, Molise and north-western Campania) from the extension of the Roman citizenship to all the people of ancient Italy (90 BC) through the 1st century AD. The result of the extension of the civitas Romana was a new Roman state and territory, which had to be organised and administrated effectively by Rome. In practice, this also implied the reorganization of the territories and the states of the new citizens: their communities became municipia and coloniae, i.e. autonomous sections of the Roman state; their independent administration was guaranteed by the presence of resp. quattuorviri and duoviri, i.e. four and two magistrates. From the point of view of the new citizens, such as u.a. the Etruscans, Umbrians and Italians, the same process was considered as a political-institutional Romanization. Romanization is a very wide concept, broadly used by modern scholarship to explain the gradual phenomenon of linguistic, social and, more generically, cultural homologation to Rome, which could be either forced or voluntarily experienced by non-Roman populations. As for institutions, on the contrary, this concept had been so far little applied and the related process not much investigated by modern scholars, especially in relation to non-Roman communities of central Italy. This important process implied, on the one hand, the pre-existence of local governments, institutions and rights among these communities and, on the other, the homologation of these epichoric orders and structures to a Roman model.The main aim of our investigation was to reconstruct for the first time this period of transition as it was experienced in different ways by each single community of central Italy. In summary, the project's most significant result is a reconstructed and well documented panorama of the political and institutional situation in the Italian and Etruscan areas after 90 BC - presented in a monograph (in preparation), in articles and talks, but especially in the open-access Database www.arcait.it, ARchive of Constitutions of Ancient ITaly - which reveals that their integration process in the Roman state and the political unification of ancient Italy in reality only took place gradually. It was neither accompanied by the complete loss of the autonomy of the new citizens, nor did it lead them to a complete and abrupt replacement of the pre-existing local structures. The globalising concept of Romanization of ancient Italy must therefore be understood more realistically as the totality of numerous single processes of Romanisation of the numerous populations and their communities.