History Of Italy

17 Pages 4151 Words

lt of outside (probably eastern) influence on indigenous peoples; the source, degree, and chronology of that outside influence remain uncertain. By the end of the 7th century BC, LATIUM and part of CAMPANIA had joined central Italy under Etruscan rule. As the Etruscans expanded their rule, many city-states were founded by the Italians.
ROMAN ITALY
According to later Roman historians, the city of ROME, founded in c.753--probably by local LATINS and SABINES--was ruled by Etruscan kings from 616 BC. But after the expulsion of the last of these kings, Lucius TARQUINIUS SUPERBUS in 510 BC, and the foundation of the Roman republic in 509, the power of the Etruscans declined as the Romans began the unification of Italy (see ROME, ANCIENT). This process reached its final stage in 89 BC, when the right of Roman citizenship was extended throughout Italy, with the consequent diffusion of Roman institutions and the Latin language and culture from the Alps to Sicily.
The Roman Empire
The Roman Empire began effectively with the defeat of Mark ANTONY and CLEOPATRA in 31 BC by the man who would later become Emperor AUGUSTUS. During the following centuries the increasing extent of the Roman possessions outside Italy and the complexity of the imperial bureaucracy resulted in a decline in the importance of Italy itself, a process accelerated by the growing number of emperors born outside Italy, whose allegiances lay elsewhere. The Edict of Caracalla (AD 212 or 213), which extended Roman citizenship to nearly all free provincials throughout the empire, further undermined Italy's special status. In 330, Emperor CONSTANTINE I transferred his capital from Rome to Constantinople, built on the site of Byzantium. Italy's administrative autonomy was lost shortly afterwards when two dioceses were joined with that of Africa to form a single prefecture. The loss of temporal power, however, was to some degree compensated for by the growing importance of Italy...