Көне Рим дәуіріндегі Италия

Italy during the Ancient Rome era

Italia (in both the Latin and Italian languages), also referred to as Roman Italy, was the homeland of the ancient Romans. According to Roman mythology, Italy was the ancestral home promised by Jupiter to Aeneas of Troy and his descendants, Romulus and Remus, 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 Iapygian 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 Roman provinces were being established throughout the Mediterranean, Italy maintained a special status which made it [[Dominus (title) ("ruler of the provinces"), and – especially in relation to the first centuries of imperial stability – rectrix mundi ("governor of the world") and omnium terrarum parens ("parent of all lands"). Such a status meant that, within Italy in times of peace, Roman magistrates also 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 Italians 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 with more than two centuries of stability afterward. 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, but the Roman empire managed to survive and reconquer breakaway regions. In 286 AD, the Emperor Diocletian moved the imperial residence associated with the western provinces (the 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. Since then, no single authority was established in Italy as a whole except for a brief Period when the Byzantine Empire reconquered Italy. Even the modern Republic of Italy only consists of most of Italian region, excluding Corsica and some other areas.

Following the end of the Social War in 87 BC, Rome had allowed its fellow Italian allies full rights in Roman society and granted Roman citizenship to all fellow 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. Christianity then 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 favour 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).

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. The city of Emona (modern Ljubljana, Slovenia) was the easternmost town of Italy.

In 330, Constantine completed the rebuilding of Byzantium as Constantinople. He established the Imperial court, a Senate, financial and judicial administrations, as well as the military structures. The new city, however, did not receive an urban prefect until 359 which raised it to the status of eastern capital. After the death of Theodosius in 395 and the subsequent division of the Empire, Italy was home base of the Western Roman Empire. As a result of Alaric's invasion in 402 the western seat was moved from Mediolanum to Ravenna. Alaric, king of Visigoths, sacked Rome itself in 410; something that had not happened for eight centuries. Northern Italy was attacked by Attila's Huns in 452. Rome was sacked in 455 again by the Vandals under the command of Genseric. According to Notitia Dignitatum, one of the very few surviving documents of Roman government updated to the 420s, Roman Italy was governed by a praetorian prefect, Prefectus praetorio Italiae (who also governed the Diocese of Africa and the Diocese of Pannonia), one vicarius, and one comes rei militaris. The regions of Italy were governed at the end of the fourth century by eight consulares (Venetiae et Histriae, Aemiliae, Liguriae, Flaminiae et Piceni annonarii, Tusciae et Umbriae, Piceni suburbicarii, Campaniae, and Siciliae), two correctores (Apuliae et Calabriae and Lucaniae et Bruttiorum) and seven praesides (Alpium Cottiarum, Rhaetia Prima and Secunda, Samnii, Valeriae, Sardiniae, and Corsicae). In the fifth century, with the Emperors controlled by their barbarian generals, the Western Imperial government maintained weak control over Italy itself, whose coasts were periodically under attack. In 476, with the abdication of Romulus Augustulus, the Western Roman Empire had formally fallen unless one considers Julius Nepos, the legitimate emperor recognized by Constantinople as the last. He was assassinated in 480 and may have been recognized by Odoacer. Italy remained under Odoacer and his Kingdom of Italy, and then under the Ostrogothic Kingdom. The Germanic successor states under Odoacer and Theodoric the Great continued to use the Roman administrative apparatus, as well as being nominal subjects of the Eastern emperor at Constantinople. In 535 Roman Emperor Justinian invaded Italy which suffered twenty years of disastrous war. In August 554, Justinian issued a Pragmatic sanction which maintained most of the organization of Diocletian. The "Prefecture of Italy" thus survived, and was reestablished under Roman control in the course of Justinian's Gothic War. As a result of the Lombard invasion in 568, the Byzantines lost most of Italy, except the territories of the Exarchate of Ravenna – a corridor from Venice to Lazio via Perugia – and footholds in the south Naples and the toe and heel of the peninsula.