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Roman Italy is the period of ancient Italian history going from the founding and rise of ancient Rome to the decline and fall of the Western Roman Empire; the Latin name of the Italian peninsula in this period was Italia (continued to be used in the Italian language). "Roman Italy" Encyclopædia Britannica. May 2025 According to Roman mythology, Italy was the ancestral home of Aeneas, being the homeland of the Troy progenitor, Dardanus; Aeneas, instructed by Jupiter, moved to Italy after the fall of Troy, and his descendants, Romulus and Remus, were the founders of Rome. Aside from the legendary accounts, Rome was an Italic city-state that changed its form of government from Roman Kingdom (ruled, between 753 BC and 509 BC, by seven kings) to Roman Republic, and then grew within the context of a peninsula dominated by the Cisalpine Gaul, Ligures, Adriatic Veneti, Camunni and Histri in the Northern Italy; the Etruscans, Latins, Falisci, Picentes, Umbrian and Sabines in the Central Italy; and the Iapygians tribes (such as the Messapians), the Osci tribes (such as the Samnites) and Magna Graecia colonies in the Southern Italy.
The consolidation of Italy into a single entity occurred during the Roman expansion in the peninsula, when Rome formed a Socii with most of other the local tribes and cities; and Italy's inhabitants included Roman citizens, communities with Latin Rights, and socii. The strength of the Italian confederacy was a crucial factor in the rise of Rome, starting with the Punic Wars and Macedonian Wars wars between the 3rd and 2nd century BC. As Roman provinces were being established throughout the Mediterranean, Italy maintained a special status with political, religious and financial privileges. In Italy, Roman magistrates exercised the imperium domi (police power), as an alternative to the imperium militiae (military power) exercised in the provinces.
The period between the end of the 2nd century BC and the 1st century BC was Roman Revolution, beginning with the Servile Wars, continuing with the opposition of Optimates to Populares 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 Augustus and was then organized in eleven regions from the Alps to the Ionian Sea with more than Pax Romana 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.
With the development of provincial governments and the proliferation of citizenship, Italy gradually lost its position as the empire's heartland, though it retained the ideological value as Roman metropole. 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 territories (the later Western Roman Empire) from Rome to Mediolanum. Video of Roman Milan In 293 AD, Diocletian subdivided Italy into Roman province and ended its special juridical privileges, which led to the loss of Italy's precedence over provinces. Meanwhile, the islands of Roman Corsica, Roman Sardinia, Roman Sicily and Malta were added to Italy by Diocletian. The city of Rome declined as the center of power as new capitals were established outside Italy, such as Nicomedia, Sirmium, and later Constantinople. However, Italy remained the centre of the Western Roman Empire in late antiquity. Italian cities such as Mediolanum, Ravenna and Rome continued to serve as capitals for the West. The Bishop of Rome had gained importance gradually from the reign of Constantine the Great, and was given religious primacy with the Edict of Thessalonica under Theodosius I. Italy was invaded several times by the Migration Period and fell under the control of Odoacer, when Romulus Augustus was deposed in 476 AD. Afterwards, Italy was ruled by the Ostrogoths and then briefly reconquered by the Byzantine Empire. The Lombards invasion in 568 AD would begin the fragmentation of Italy which lasted until its unification in 1861.
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 clarissimus. 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).
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. Lastly, in the late 3rd century, Italy came to also include the islands of Sicily, Corsica and Sardinia, as well as Raetia and part of Pannonia. The city of Emona (modern Ljubljana, Slovenia) was the easternmost town of Italy.
Italy was privileged by Augustus and his heirs, with the construction, among other public structures, of a dense network of Roman roads. The Italian economy flourished: agriculture, handicraft and industry had noticeable growth, allowing the export of goods to the provinces. The Italian population may have grown as well: three censuses were ordered by Augustus, in his role as Roman censor, in order to record the number of Roman citizens throughout the empire. The surviving totals were 4,063,000 in 28 BC, 4,233,000 in 8 BC, and 4,937,000 in AD 14, but it is still debated whether these counted all citizens, all adult male citizens, or citizens sui iuris. Estimates for the population of mainland Italy, including Cisalpine Gaul, at the beginning of the 1st century range from 6,000,000 according to Karl Julius Beloch in 1886, to 14,000,000 according to Elio Lo Cascio in 2009.
Under Diocletian Italy became the Dioecesis Italiciana. It included Raetia. It was subdivided into the following provinces:
Constantine subdivided the Empire into four praetorian prefectures. The Diocesis Italiciana became the Praetorian prefecture of Italy ( praefectura praetoria Italiae), and was subdivided into two dioceses. It still included Raetia. The two dioceses and their provinces were:
Diocesis Italia annonaria (Italy of the Cura Annonae - its inhabitants had the obligation to provide the court, the administration and the troops, first allocated in Milan and then in Ravenna, supplies, wine and timber)
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 Consularis ( Venetiae et Histriae, Aemiliae, Liguriae, Flaminiae et Piceni annonarii, Tusciae et Umbriae, Piceni suburbicarii, Campaniae, and Siciliae), two ( Apuliae et Calabriae and Lucaniae et Bruttiorum) and seven Praeses ( 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 Byzantine Empire 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.
With the Longobards started the division of Italy, that lasted until 1861.
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