Italy

Italy, which was not a province, was the center of the Roman Empire throughout the Principate (27 bc–ad 284).

When Rome emerged as Italy’s preeminent state, the populace of the Italian peninsula was comprised of numerous ethnic groups, including Samnites, Celts, Etruscans, and Greeks. Through persistent campaigning between 396–218 bc, the Romans conquered the peninsula.

After the Social War (91–88 bc), all free-born Italians were granted Roman citizenship. Throughout the first century bc, Italy’s regionalism declined and a sense of unity took hold, as soldiers from various locales served together in the legions, veterans settled together in colonies, and civil wars took their tolls. Italy’s boundary in 42 bc encompassed lands from the peninsula’s southern tip to the Rubicon River, and it soon expanded to take in Cisalpine Gaul, from the Rubicon to the Alps.

The empire gave Italy special privileges, including tax exemptions for Italian farms and imperial patronage for building projects. Beyond the vicinity of Rome, however, the benefits of imperial patronage were less prominent, and Rome’s influence on daily life varied throughout Italy. During the last half of the first century ad, Italian industrial and agricultural exports seem to have shifted from the provinces to local markets, with Rome itself a primary market. In the third century, Italy’s importance within the Roman Empire dwindled, and in ad 324 Constantinople was declared the imperial capital.