Under The Republic and Augustan Organization
During the Republic and the first centuries of the empire, Italia (which extended at the beginning from Calabria to Rubicon, starting from Augustus from Calabria to the Alps) was not a province, but rather the territory of the city of Rome, thus having a special status: for example, military commanders were not allowed to bring their armies within Italia, and Julius Caesar passing the Rubicon with his legions marked the start of the civil war.
The name Italia covered an area of land whose borders evolved over time. According to Strabo (Geographia, v 1), at the beginning the name indicated the land between the strait of Messina and the line connecting the gulf of Salerno and gulf of Taranto; later Italia was extended to include the whole Italian peninsula, as well as the Istrian town of Colonia Pietas Iulia (Pola); finally, Julius Caesar gave Roman citizenship to the people of the Gallia Transpadana— that part of Cisalpine Gaul that lay "beyond the Po"—, thus extending Italia up to the Alps.
With the end of the Social War (91–88 BC), Rome allowed the Italian allies to enter with full rights in the Roman society, giving the Roman citizenship to all the Italic peoples.
At the beginning of the Empire, Italia was a collection of territories with different statuses. Some cities, called municipii, had some independence from Rome, others, the colonies, were founded by the Romans themselves. Around 7 BC, Augustus Caesar divided Italia into eleven regiones, as reported by Pliny the Elder in his Naturalis Historia (iii 46):
- Regio I Latium et Campania
- Regio II Apulia et Calabria
- Regio III Lucania et Brutium
- Regio IV Samnium
- Regio V Picenum
- Regio VI Umbria et Ager Gallicus
- Regio VII Etruria
- Regio VIII Aemilia
- Regio IX Liguria
- Regio X Venetia et Histria
- Regio XI Transpadana
Italia was privileged by Augustus and his heirs, with the construction, among other public structures, of a dense mesh of roads.
The Italian economy flourished: agriculture, handicraft and industry had a sensible growth, allowing the export of goods to the other provinces.
The Italian population may have grown as well: Three census were ordered by Augustus, 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, and how many of the citizens lived in Italia. Estimates for the population of mainland Italia, including Gallia Cisalpina, at the beginning of the 1st Century C.E. range from 6,000,000 according to Beloch in 1886, 6,830,000 according to Russell in 1958, less than 10,000,000 according to Hin in 2007, and 14,000,000 according to Lo Cascio in 2009.
(For more on population estimates, see Classical demography.)
Read more about this topic: Italy (Roman Empire)
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