Latium - History

History

The region that would become Latium had been home to settled agricultural populations since the early Bronze Age and was known to the Ancient Greeks and even earlier to the Mycenaean Greeks. It was populated by a mixture of Indo-European and non-Indo-European language speakers. The name is most likely derived from the Latin word "latus", meaning "wide", expressing the idea of "flat land" (in contrast to the local Sabine high country) but the name may originate from an earlier, non Indo-European one. The Etruscans, from their home region of Etruria (modern day Tuscany) exerted a strong cultural and political influence on Latium from about the 8th century BC onward. However, they were unable to assert political hegemony over the region, which was controlled by small, autonomous city-states in a manner roughly analogous to the state of affairs that prevailed in Ancient Greece. Indeed, the region's cultural and geographic proximity to the cities of the Greek mainland had a strong impact upon its early history. The Phoenicians, who had a long tradition of trading with Italian people and possessed much of Sicily, are also believed to have influenced the region's development.

One of the earliest recorded non-Etruscan settlements in Latium is the quasi-mythical city of Alba Longa located somewhat southeast of the present-day city of Rome. According to Livy and other ancient authorities, it was here that the Latin League was founded, a coalition of city-states intended as a bulwark against Etruscan expansion.

The city-state of Rome emerged as the dominant political and military power in the region, following Rome's destruction of Alba Longa in the middle of the 7th century BC.

The emperor Augustus officially united all of present-day Italy into a single geo-political entity, Italia, dividing it into eleven regions. Latium – together with the present region of Campagna immediately to the southeast of Latium and the seat of Naples – became Region I.

After the Gothic War (535–554) A.D. and the Roman conquest, this region regained its freedom, because the "Roman Duchy" became the property of the Eastern Emperor. However the long wars against the barbarian Longobards weakened the region, which was seized by the Roman Bishop who already had several properties in those territories.

The strengthening of the religious and ecclesiastical aristocracy led to continuous power struggles between lords and the Roman bishop until the middle of the 16th century. Innocent III tried to strengthen his own territorial power, wishing to assert his authority in the provincial administrations of Tuscia, Campagna and Marittima through the Church's representatives, in order to reduce the power of the Colonna family. Other popes tried to do the same.

During the period when the papacy resided in Avignon, France (1309–1377), the feudal lords' power increased due to the absence of the Pope from Rome. Small communes, and Rome above all, opposed the lords' increasing power, and with Cola di Rienzo, they tried to present themselves as antagonists of the ecclesiastical power. However, between 1353 and 1367, the papacy regained control of Latium and the rest of the Papal States.

From the middle of the 16th century, the papacy politically unified Latium with the Papal States, so that these territories became provincial administrations of St. Peter's estate; governors in Viterbo, in Marittima and Campagna, and in Frosinone administered them for the papacy.

After the short-lived Roman Republic (18th century), the region's annexation to France by Napoleon Bonaparte in February 1798, Latium became again part of the Papal States in October, 1799.

On 20 September 1870, the capture of Rome, during the reign of Pope Pius IX, and France's defeat at Sedan, completed Italian unification, and Latium was incorporated into the Kingdom of Italy.