Chapter VII: Part I: £402,216,795 (1)

------------
Grand Total £521,568,629

The debt per head of population was, in 1905, £14, 16s. 3d., and the
interest 13s. 5d.

In July 1906 the 5% gross (4% net), and 4% net rente were successfully
converted into 3¾% stock (to be reduced to 3½% after five years), to a
total amount of £324,017,393. The demands for reimbursement at par
represented a sum of only £187,588 and the market value of the stock
was hardly affected; while the saving to the Treasury was to be
£800,000 per annum for the first five years and about double the
amount afterwards.

_Currency._--The _lira_ (plural _lire_) of 100 _centesimi_ (centimes)
is equal in value to the French franc. The total coinage (exclusive of
Eritrean currency) from the 1st of January 1862 to the end of 1907 was
1,104,667,116 lire (exclusive of recoinage), divided as follows: gold,
427,516,970 lire; silver, 570,097,025 lire; nickel, 23,417,000 lire;
bronze, 83,636,121 lire. The forced paper currency, instituted in
1866, was abolished in 1881, in which year were dissolved the Union of
Banks of Issue created in 1874 to furnish to the state treasury a
milliard of lire in notes, guaranteed collectively by the banks. Part
of the Union notes were redeemed, part replaced by 10 lire and 5 lire
state notes, payable at sight in metallic legal tender by certain
state banks. Nevertheless the law of 1881 did not succeed in
maintaining the value of the state notes at a par with the metallic
currency, and from 1885 onwards there reappeared a gold premium, which
during 1899 and 1900 remained at about 7%, but subsequently fell to
about 3% and has since 1902 practically disappeared. The paper
circulation to the debit of the state and the paper currency issued by
the authorized state banks is shown below:--

+-------------------+----------------------------+---------------+---------------+
| | Direct Liability of State. | Notes issued | Aggregate |
| Date. +-------------+--------------+ by State | Paper |
| | State Notes.| Bons de | Banks. | Currency. |
| | | Caisse.* | | |
+-------------------+-------------+--------------+---------------+---------------+
| | Lire. | Lire. | Lire. | Lire. |
|31st December 1881 | 940,000,000 | .. | 735,579,197 | 1,675,579,197 |
| " 1886 | 446,665,535 | .. | 1,031,869,712 | 1,478,535,247 |
| " 1891 | 341,949,237 | .. | 1,121,601,079 | 1,463,550,316 |
| " 1896 | 400,000,000 | 110,000,000 | 1,069,233,376 | 1,579,233,376 |
| " 1899 | 451,431,780 | 42,138,152 | 1,180,110,330 | 1,673,680,262 |
| " 1905 | 441,304,780 | 1,874,184 | 1,406,474,800 | 1,848,657,764 |
+-------------------+-------------+--------------+---------------+---------------+

* These ceased to have legal currency at the end of 1901; they were
notes of 1 and 2 lire.

_Banks._--Until 1893 the juridical status of the Banks of Issue was
regulated by the laws of the 30th of April 1874 on paper currency and
of the 7th of April 1881 on the abolition of forced currency. At that
time four limited companies were authorized to issue bank notes,
namely, the National Bank, the National Bank of Tuscany, the Roman
Bank and the Tuscan Credit Bank; and two banking corporations, the
Bank of Naples and the Bank of Sicily. In 1893 the Roman Bank was put
into liquidation, and the other three limited companies were fused, so
as to create the Bank of Italy, the privilege of issuing bank notes
being thenceforward confined to the Bank of Italy, the Bank of Naples
and the Bank of Sicily. The gold reserve in the possession of the
Banca d'Italia on September 30th 1907 amounted to £32,240,984, and the
silver reserve to £4,767,861; the foreign treasury bonds, &c. amounted
to £3,324,074, making the total reserve £40,332,919; while the
circulation amounted to £54,612,234. The figures were on the 31st of
December 1906:

+------------------+--------------+--------------+
| | Paper | Reserve. |
| | Circulation. | |
+------------------+--------------+--------------+
| Banca d'Italia | £47,504,352 | £36,979,235 |
| Banca di Napoli | 13,893,152 | 9,756,284 |
| Banca di Sicilia | 2,813,692 | 2,060,481 |
+------------------+--------------+--------------+
| Total | £64,211,196 | £48,796,000 |
+------------------+--------------+--------------+

This is considerably in excess of the circulation, £40,404,000, fixed
by royal decree of 1900; but the issue of additional notes was
allowed, provided they were entirely covered by a metallic reserve,
whereas up to the fixed limit a 40% reserve only was necessary. These
notes are of 50, 100, 500 and 1000 lire; while the state issues notes
for 5, 10 and 25 lire, the currency of these at the end of October
1906 being £17,546,967; with a total guarantee of £15,636,000 held
against them. They were in January 1908 equal in value to the metallic
currency of gold and silver.

The price of Italian consolidated 5% (gross, 4% net, allowing for the
20% income tax) stock, which is the security most largely negotiated
abroad, and used in settling differences between large financial
institutions, has steadily risen during recent years. After being
depressed between 1885 and 1894, the prices in Italy and abroad
reached, in 1899, on the Rome Stock Exchange, the average of 100.83
and of 94.8 on the Paris Bourse. By the end of 1901 the price of
Italian stock on the Paris Bourse had, however, risen to par or
thereabouts. The average price of Italian 4% in 1905 was 105.29; since
the conversion to 3¾% net (to be further reduced to 3½ in five more
years), the price has been about 103.5. Rates of exchange, or, in
other words the gold premium, favoured Italy during the years
immediately following the abolition of the forced currency in 1881. In
1885, however, rates tended to rise, and though they fell in 1886 they
subsequently increased to such an extent as to reach 110% at the end
of August 1894. For the next four years they continued low, but rose
again in 1898 and 1899. In 1900 the maximum rate was 107.32, and the
minimum 105.40, but in 1901 rates fell considerably, and were at par
in 1902-1909.

There are in Italy six clearing houses, namely, the ancient one at
Leghorn, and those of Genoa, Milan, Rome, Florence and Turin, founded
since 1882.

The number of ordinary banks, which diminished between 1889 and 1894,
increased in the following years, and was 158 in 1898. At the same
time the capital employed in banking decreased by nearly one-half,
namely, from about £12,360,000 in 1880 to about £6,520,000 in 1898.
This decrease was due to the liquidation of a number of large and
small banks, amongst others the Bank of Genoa, the General Bank, and
the Società di Credito Mobiliare Italiano of Rome, and the Genoa
Discount Bank--establishments which alone represented £4,840,000 of
paid-up capital. Ordinary credit operations are also carried on by the
co-operative credit societies, of which there are some 700.

Agrarian Credit Banks.

Certain banks make a special business of lending money to owners of
land or buildings (_credito fondiario_). Loans are repayable by
instalments, and are guaranteed by first mortgages not greater in
amount than half the value of the hypothecated property. The banks may
buy up mortgages and advance money on current account on the security
of land or buildings. The development of the large cities has induced
these banks to turn their attention rather to building enterprise than
to mortgages on rural property. The value of their land certificates
or _cartelle fondiarie_ (representing capital in circulation) rose
from £10,420,000 in 1881 to £15,560,000 in 1886, and to £30,720,000 in
1891, but fell to £29,320,000 in 1896, to £27,360,000 in 1898, and to
£24,360,000 in 1907; the amount of money lent increased from
£10,440,000 in 1881 to £15,600,000 in 1886, and £30,800,000 in 1891,
but fell to £29,320,000 in 1896, to £27,360,000 in 1899, and to
£21,720,000 in 1907. The diminution was due to the law of the 10th of
April 1893 upon the banks of issue, by which they were obliged to
liquidate the loan and mortgage business they had previously carried
on.

Various laws have been passed to facilitate agrarian credit. The law
of the 23rd of January 1887 (still in force) extended the dispositions
of the Civil Code with regard to "privileges,"[9] and established
special "privileges" in regard to harvested produce, produce stored in
barns and farm buildings, and in regard to agricultural implements.
Loans on mortgage may also be granted to landowners and agricultural
unions, with a view to the introduction of agricultural improvements.
These loans are regulated by special disposition, and are guaranteed
by a share of the increased value of the land after the improvements
have been carried out. Agrarian credit banks may, with the permission
of the government, issue _cartelle agrarie_, or agrarian bonds,
repayable by instalments and bearing interest.

_Internal Administration._--It was not till 1865 that the
administrative unity of Italy was realized. Up to that year some of
the regions of the kingdom, such as Tuscany, continued to have a kind
of autonomy; but by the laws of the 20th of March the whole country
was divided into 69 provinces and 8545 communes. The extent to which
communal independence had been maintained in Italy through all the
centuries of its political disintegration was strongly in its favour.
The syndic (_sindaco_) or chief magistrate of the commune was
appointed by the king for three years, and he was assisted by a
"municipal junta."

Local government was modified by the law of the 10th of February 1889
and by posterior enactments. The syndics (or mayors) are now elected
by a secret ballot of the communal council, though they are still
government officials. In the provincial administrations the functions
of the prefects have been curtailed. Each province has a prefect,
responsible to and appointed by the Ministry of the Interior, while
each of the regions (called variously _circondarii_ and _distretti_)
has its sub-prefect. Whereas the prefect was formerly _ex-officio_
president of the provincial deputation or executive committee of the
provincial council, his duties under the present law are reduced to
mere participation in the management of provincial affairs, the
president of the provincial deputation being chosen among and elected
by the members of the deputation. The most important change introduced
by the new law has been the creation in every province of a provincial
administrative junta entrusted with the supervision of communal
administrations, a function previously discharged by the provincial
deputation. Each provincial administrative junta is composed, in part,
of government nominees, and in larger part of elective elements,
elected by the provincial council for four years, half of whom require
to be elected every two years. The acts of communal administration
requiring the sanction of the provincial administrative junta are
chiefly financial. Both communal councils and prefects may appeal to
the government against the decision of the provincial administrative
juntas, the government being guided by the opinion of the Council of
State. Besides possessing competence in regard to local government
elections, which previously came within the jurisdiction of the
provincial deputations, the provincial administrative juntas discharge
magisterial functions in administrative affairs, and deal with appeals
presented by private persons against acts of the communal and
provincial administrations. The juntas are in this respect organs of
the administrative jurisprudence created in Italy by the law of the
1st of May 1890, in order to provide juridical protection for those
rights and interests outside the competence of the ordinary tribunals.
The provincial council only meets once a year in ordinary session.

The former qualifications for electorship in local government
elections have been modified, and it is now sufficient to pay five
lire annually in direct taxes, five lire of certain communal taxes, or
a certain rental (which varies according to the population of a
commune), instead of being obliged to pay, as previously, at least
five lire annually of direct taxes to the state. In consequence of
this change the number of local electors increased by more than
one-third between 1887-1889; it decreased, however, as a result of an
extraordinary revision of the registers in 1894. The period for which
both communal and provincial councils are elected is six years,
one-half being renewed every three years.

The ratio of local electors to population is in Piedmont 79%, but in
Sicily less than 45%. The ratio of voters to qualified electors tends
to increase; it is highest in Campania, Basilicata and in the south
generally; the lowest percentages are given by Emilia and Liguria.

Local finance.

Local finance is regulated by the communal and provincial law of May
1898, which instituted provincial administrative juntas, empowered to
examine and sanction the acts of the communal financial
administrations. The sanction of the provincial administrative junta
is necessary for sales or purchases of property, alterations of rates
(although in case of increase the junta can only act upon request of
ratepayers paying an aggregate of one-twentieth of the local direct
taxation), and expenditure affecting the communal budget for more than
five years. The provincial administrative junta is, moreover,
empowered to order "obligatory" expenditure, such as the upkeep of
roads, sanitary works, lighting, police (i.e. the so-called "guardie
di pubblica sicurezza," the "carabinieri" being really a military
force; only the largest towns maintain a municipal police force),
charities, education, &c., in case such expenditure is neglected by
the communal authorities. The cost of fire brigades, infant asylums,
evening and holiday schools, is classed as "optional" expenditure.
Communal revenues are drawn from the proceeds of communal property,
interest upon capital, taxes and local dues. The most important of the
local dues is the gate tax, or _dazio di consumo_, which may be either
a surtax upon commodities (such as alcoholic drinks or meat), having
already paid customs duty at the frontier, in which case the local
surtax may not exceed 50% of the frontier duty, or an exclusively
communal duty limited to 10% on flour, bread and farinaceous
products,[10] and to 20% upon other commodities. The taxes thus vary
considerably in different towns.

In addition, the communes have a right to levy a surtax not exceeding
50% of the quota levied by the state upon lands and buildings; a
family tax, or _fuocatico_, upon the total incomes of families, which,
for fiscal purposes, are divided into various categories; a tax based
upon the rent-value of houses, and other taxes upon cattle, horses,
dogs, carriages and servants; also on licences for shopkeepers, hotel
and restaurant keepers, &c.; on the slaughter of animals, stamp
duties, one-half of the tax on bicycles, &c. Occasional sources of
interest are found in the sale of communal property, the realization
of communal credits, and the contraction of debt.

The provincial administrations are entrusted with the management of
the affairs of the provinces in general, as distinguished from those
of the communes. Their expenditure is likewise classed as "obligatory"
and "optional." The former category comprises the maintenance of
provincial roads, bridges and watercourse embankments; secondary
education, whenever this is not provided for by private institutions
or by the state (elementary education being maintained by the
communes), and the maintenance of foundlings and pauper lunatics.
"Optional" expenditure includes the cost of services of general public
interest, though not strictly indispensable. Provincial revenues are
drawn from provincial property, school taxes, tolls and surtaxes on
land and buildings. The provincial surtaxes may not exceed 50% of the
quotas levied by the state. In 1897 the total provincial revenue was
£3,732,253, of which £3,460,000 was obtained from the surtax upon
lands and buildings. Expenditure amounted to £3,768,888, of which the
principal items were £760,000 for roads and bridges, £520,000 for
lunatic asylums, £240,000 for foundling hospitals, £320,000 for
interest on debt and £200,000 for police. Like communal revenue,
provincial revenue has considerably increased since 1880, principally
on account of the increase in the land and building surtax.

The Italian local authorities, communes and provinces alike, have
considerably increased their indebtedness since 1882. The ratio of
communal and provincial debt per inhabitant has grown from 30.79 lire
(£1, 4s. 7½d.) to 43.70 lire (£1, 14s. 11d.), an increase due in great
part to the need for improved buildings, hygienic reforms and
education, but also attributable in part to the manner in which the
finances of many communes are administered. The total was in 1900,
£49,496,193 for the communes and £6,908,022 for the provinces. The
former total is more than double and the latter more than treble the
sum in 1873, while there is an increase of 62% in the former and 26%
in the latter over the totals for 1882.

See _Annuario statistico italiano_ (not, however, issued regularly
each year) for general statistics; and other official publications; W.
Deecke, _Italy; a Popular Account of the Country, its People and its
Institutions_ (translated by H. A. Nesbitt, London, 1904); B. King and
T. Okey, _Italy to-day_ (London, 1901); E. Nathan, _Vent' Anni di vita
italiana attraverso all' Annuario_ (Rome, 1906); G. Strafforello,
_Geografia dell' Italia_ (Turin, 1890-1902). (T. As.)

HISTORY

The difficulty of Italian history lies in the fact that until modern times the Italians have had no political unity, no independence, no organized existence as a nation. Split up into numerous and mutually hostile communities, they never, through the fourteen centuries which have elapsed since the end of the old Western empire, shook off the yoke of foreigners completely; they never until lately learned to merge their local and conflicting interests in the common good of undivided Italy. Their history is therefore not the history of a single people, centralizing and absorbing its constituent elements by a process of continued evolution, but of a group of cognate populations, exemplifying divers types of constitutional developments.

The early history of Italy will be found under ROME and allied headings. The following account is therefore mainly concerned with the periods succeeding A.D. 476, when Romulus Augustulus was deposed by Odoacer. Prefixed to this are two sections dealing respectively with (A) the ethnographical and philological divisions of ancient Italy, and (B) the unification of the country under Augustus, the growth of the road system and so forth. The subsequent history is divided into five periods: (C) From 476 to 1796; (D) From 1796 to 1814; (E) From 1815 to 1870; (F) From 1870 to 1902; (G) From 1902 to 1910.

A. ANCIENT LANGUAGES AND PEOPLES

The ethnography of ancient Italy is a very complicated and difficult subject, and notwithstanding the researches of modern scholars is still involved in some obscurity. The great beauty and fertility of the country, as well as the charm of its climate, undoubtedly attracted, even in early ages, successive swarms of invaders from the north, who sometimes drove out the previous occupants of the most favoured districts, at others reduced them to a state of serfdom, or settled down in the midst of them, until the two races gradually coalesced. Ancient writers are agreed as to the composite character of the population of Italy, and the diversity of races that were found within the limits of the peninsula. But unfortunately the traditions they have transmitted to us are often various and conflicting, while the only safe test of the affinities of nations, derived from the comparison of their languages, is to a great extent inapplicable, from the fact that the idioms that prevailed in Italy in and before the 5th century B.C. are preserved, if at all, only in a few scanty and fragmentary inscriptions, though from that date onwards we have now a very fair record of many of them (see, e.g. LATIN LANGUAGE, OSCA LINGUA, IGUVIUM, VOLSCI, ETRURIA: section _Language_, and below). These materials, imperfect as they are, when combined with the notices derived from ancient writers and the evidence of archaeological excavations, may be considered as having furnished some results of reasonable certainty.

It must be observed that the name "Italians" was at one time confined to the Oenotrians; indeed, according to Antiochus of Syracuse (_apud_ Dion. Hal. _Ant. Rom._ ii. 1), the name of Italy was first still more limited, being applied only to the southern portion of the Bruttium peninsula (now known as Calabria). But in the time of that historian, as well as of Thucydides, the names of Oenotria and Italia, which appear to have been at that period regarded as synonymous, had been extended to include the shore of the Tarentine Gulf as far as Metapontum and from thence across to the gulfs of Laus and Posidonia on the Tyrrhenian Sea. It thus still comprised only the two provinces subsequently known as Lucania and Bruttium (see references s.v. "Italia" in R. S. Conway's _Italic Dialects_, p. 5). The name seems to be a Graecized form of an Italic _Vitelia_, from the stem _vitlo_-, "calf" (Lat. _vitulus_, Gr. [Greek: italos]), and perhaps to have meant "calf-land," "grazing-land"; but the origin is more certain than the meaning; the calf may be one of the many animals connected with Italian tribes (see HIRPINI, SAMNITES).

Taking the term Italy to comprise the whole peninsula with the northern region as far as the Alps, we must first distinguish the tribe or tribes which spoke Indo-European languages from those who did not. To the latter category it is now possible to refer with certainty only the Etruscans (for the chronology and limits of their occupation of Italian soil see ETRURIA: section _Language_). Of all the other tribes that inhabited Italy down to the classical period, of whose speech there is any record (whether explicit or in the form of names and glosses), it is impossible to maintain that any one does not belong to the Indo-European group. Putting aside the Etruscan, and also the different Greek dialects of the Greek colonies, like Cumae, Neapolis, Tarentum, and proceeding from the south to the north, the different languages or dialects, of whose separate existence at some time between, say, 600 and 200 B.C., we can be sure, may be enumerated as follows: (1) Sicel, (2) South Oscan and Oscan, (3) Messapian, (4) North Oscan, (5) Volscian, (6) East Italic or "Sabellic," (7) Latinian, (8) Sabine, (9) Iguvine or "Umbrian," (10) Gallic, (11) Ligurian and (12) Venetic.

Between several of these dialects it is probable that closer affinities exist. (1) It is probable, though not very clearly demonstrated, that Venetic, East Italic and Messapian are connected together and with the ancient dialects spoken in Illyria (q.v.), so that these might be provisionally entitled the Adriatic group, to which the language spoken by the Eteocretes of the city of Praesos in Crete down to the 4th century B.C. was perhaps akin. (2) Too little is known of the Sicel language to make clear more than its Indo-European character. But it must be reckoned among the languages of Italy because of the well-supported tradition of the early existence of the Sicels in Latium (see SICULI). Their possible place in the earlier stratum of Indo-European population is discussed under SABINI. How far also the language or languages spoken in Bruttium and at certain points of Lucania, such as Anxia, differed from the Oscan of Samnium and Campania there is not enough evidence to show (see BRUTTII). (3) It is doubtful whether there are any actual inscriptions which can be referred with certainty to the language of the Ligures, but some other evidence seems to link them with the -_CO_- peoples, whose early distribution is discussed under VOLSCI and LIGURIA. (4) It is difficult to point to any definite evidence by which we may determine the dates of the earliest appearance of Gallic tribes in the north of Italy. No satisfactory collection has been made of the Celtic inscriptions of Cisalpine Gaul, though many are scattered about in different museums. For our present purpose it is important to note that the archaeological stratification in deposits like those of Bologna shows that the Gallic period supervened upon the Etruscan. Until a scientific collection of the local and personal names of this district has been made, and until the archaeological evidence is clearly interpreted, it is impossible to go beyond the region of conjecture as to the tribe or tribes occupying the valley of the Po before the two invasions. It is clear, however, that the Celtic and Etruscan elements together occupied the greater part of the district between the Apennines and the Alps down to its Romanization, which took place gradually in the course of the 2nd century B.C. Their linguistic neighbours were Ligurian in the south and south-west, and the Veneti on the east.

We know from the Roman historians that a large force of Gauls came as far south as Rome in the year 390 B.C., and that some part of this horde settled in what was henceforward known as the _Ager Gallicus_, the easternmost strip of coast in what was later known as Umbria, including the towns of Caesena, Ravenna and Ariminum. A bilingual inscription (Gallic and Latin) of the 2nd century B.C. was found as far south as Tuder, the modern Todi (_Italic Dialects_, ii. 528; Stokes, _Bezzenberger's Beiträge_, 11, p. 113).

(5) Turning now to the languages which constitute the Italic group in the narrower sense, (a) Oscan; (b) the dialect of Velitrae, commonly called Volscian; (c) Latinian (i.e. Latin and its nearest congeners, like Faliscan); and (d) Umbrian (or, as it may more safely be called, Iguvine), two principles of classification offer themselves, of which the first is purely linguistic, the second linguistic and topographical. Writers on the ethnology of Italy have been hitherto content with the first, namely, the broad distinction between the dialects which preserved the Indo-European velars (especially the breathed plosive _q_) as velars or back-palatals (gutturals), with or without the addition of a _w_-sound, and the dialects which converted the velars wholly into labials, for example, Latinian _quis_ contrasted with Oscan, Volscian and Umbrian _pis_ (see further LATIN LANGUAGE).

This distinction, however, takes us but a little way towards an historical grouping of the tribes, since the only Latinian dialects of which, besides Latin, we have inscriptions are Faliscan and Marsian (see FALISCI, MARSI); although the place-names of the Aequi (q.v.) suggest that they belong to the same group in this respect. Except, therefore, for a very small and apparently isolated area in the north of Latium and south of Etruria, all the tribes of Italy, though their idioms differed in certain particulars, are left undiscriminated. This presents a strong contrast to the evidence of tradition, which asserts very strongly (1) the identity of the Sabines and Samnites; (2) the conquest of an earlier population by this tribe; and which affords (3) clear evidence of the identity of the Sabines with the ruling class, i.e. the patricians, at Rome itself (see SABINI; and ROME: _Early History and Ethnology_).

Some clue to this enigma may perhaps be found in the second principle of classification proposed by the present writer at the Congresso Internationale di Scienze Storiche at Rome (_Atti del Congresso_, ii) in 1903. It was on that occasion pointed out that the ethnica or tribal and oppidan names of communities belonging to the Sabine stock were marked by the use of the suffix -_NO_- as in _Sabini_; and that there was some linguistic evidence that this stratum of population overcame an earlier population, which used, generally, ethnica in -_CO_- or -_TI_- (as in _Marruci_, _Ardeates_, transformed later into _Marrucini_, _Ardeatini_).

The validity of this distinction and its results are discussed under SABINI and VOLSCI, but it is well to state here its chief consequences.

1. Latin will be counted the language of the earlier plebeian stratum of the population of Rome and Latium, probably once spread over a large area of the peninsula, and akin in some degree to the language or languages spoken in north Italy before either the Etruscan or the Gallic invasions began.

2. It would follow, on the other hand, that what is called Oscan represented the language of the invading Sabines (more correctly Safines), whose racial affinities would seem to be of a distinctly more northern cast, and to mark them, like the Dorians or Achaeans in Greece, as an early wave of the invaders who more than once in later history have vitally influenced the fortunes of the tempting southern land into which they forced their way.

3. What is called Volscian, known only from the important inscription of the town of Velitrae, and what is called Umbrian, known from the famous Iguvine Tables with a few other records, would be regarded as Safine dialects, spoken by Safine communities who had become more or less isolated in the midst of the earlier and possibly partly Etruscanized populations, the result being that as early as the 4th century B.C. their language had suffered corruptions which it escaped both in the Samnite mountains and in the independent and self-contained community of Rome.

For fuller details the reader must be referred to the separate
articles already mentioned, and to IGUVIUM, PICENUM, OSCA LINGUA,
MARSI, AEQUI, SICULI and LIGURIA. Such archaeological evidence as can
be connected with the linguistic data will there be discussed.
(R. S. C.)

B. CONSOLIDATION OF ITALY

We have seen that the name of Italy was originally applied only to the southernmost part of the peninsula, and was only gradually extended so as to comprise the central regions, such as Latium and Campania, which were designated by writers as late as Thucydides and Aristotle as in Opicia. The progress of this change cannot be followed in detail, but there can be little doubt that the extension of the Roman arms, and the gradual union of the nations of the peninsula under one dominant power, would contribute to the introduction, or rather would make the necessity felt, for the use of one general appellation. At first, indeed, the term was apparently confined to the regions of the central and southern districts, exclusive of Cisalpine Gaul and the whole tract north of the Apennines, and this continued to be the official or definite signification of the name down to the end of the republic. But the natural limits of Italy are so clearly marked that the name came to be generally employed as a geographical term at a much earlier period. Thus we already find Polybius repeatedly applying it in this wider signification to the whole country, as far as the foot of the Alps; and it is evident from many passages in the Latin writers that this was the familiar use of the term in the days of Cicero and Caesar. The official distinction was, however, still retained. Cisalpine Gaul, including the whole of northern Italy, still constituted a "province," an appellation never applied to Italy itself. As such it was assigned to Julius Caesar, together with Transalpine Gaul, and it was not till he crossed the Rubicon that he entered Italy in the strict sense of the term.

Augustus was the first who gave a definite administrative organization to Italy as a whole, and at the same time gave official sanction to that wider acceptation of the name which had already established itself in familiar usage, and which has continued to prevail ever since.

The division of Italy into eleven regions, instituted by Augustus for administrative purposes, which continued in official use till the reign of Constantine, was based mainly on the territorial divisions previously existing, and preserved with few exceptions the ancient limits.

The first region comprised Latium (in the more extended sense of the term, as including the land of the Volsci, Hernici and Aurunci), together with Campania and the district of the Picentini. It thus extended from the mouth of the Tiber to that of the Silarus (see LATIUM).

The second region included Apulia and Calabria (the name by which the Romans usually designated the district known to the Greeks as Messapia or Iapygia), together with the land of the Hirpini, which had usually been considered as a part of Samnium.

The third region contained Lucania and Bruttium; it was bounded on the west coast by the Silarus, on the east by the Bradanus.

The fourth region comprised all the Samnites (except the Hirpini), together with the Sabines and the cognate tribes of the Frentani, Marrucini, Marsi, Peligni, Vestini and Aequiculi. It was separated from Apulia on the south by the river Tifernus, and from Picenum on the north by the Matrinus.

The fifth region was composed solely of Picenum, extending along the coast of the Adriatic from the mouth of the Matrinus to that of the Aesis, beyond Ancona.

The sixth region was formed by Umbria, in the more extended sense of the term, as including the Ager Gallicus, along the coast of the Adriatic from the Aesis to the Ariminus, and separated from Etruria on the west by the Tiber.

The seventh region consisted of Etruria, which preserved its ancient limits, extending from the Tiber to the Tyrrhenian Sea, and separated from Liguria on the north by the river Macra.

The eighth region, termed Gallia Cispadana, comprised the southern portion of Cisalpine Gaul, and was bounded on the north (as its name implied) by the river Padus or Po, from above Placentia to its mouth. It was separated from Etruria and Umbria by the main chain of the Apennines; and the river Ariminus was substituted for the far-famed Rubicon as its limit on the Adriatic.

The ninth region comprised Liguria, extending along the sea-coast from the Varus to the Macra, and inland as far as the river Padus, which constituted its northern boundary from its source in Mount Vesulus to its confluence with the Trebia just above Placentia.

The tenth region included Venetia from the Padus and Adriatic to the Alps, to which was annexed the neighbouring peninsula of Istria, and to the west the territory of the Cenomani, a Gaulish tribe, extending from the Athesis to the Addua, which had previously been regarded as a part of Gallia Cisalpina.

The eleventh region, known as Gallia Transpadana, included all the rest of Cisalpine Gaul from the Padus on the south and the Addua on the east to the foot of the Alps.

The arrangements thus established by Augustus continued almost unchanged till the time of Constantine, and formed the basis of all subsequent administrative divisions until the fall of the Western empire.

Roads.

The mainstay of the Roman military control of Italy first, and of the whole empire afterwards, was the splendid system of roads. As the supremacy of Rome extended itself over Italy, the Roman road system grew step by step, each fresh conquest being marked by the pushing forward of roads through the heart of the newly-won territory, and the establishment of fortresses in connexion with them. It was in Italy that the military value of a network of roads was first appreciated by the Romans, and the lesson stood them in good stead in the provinces. And it was for military reasons that from mere cart-tracks they were developed into permanent highways (T. Ashby, in _Papers of the British School at Rome_, i. 129). From Rome itself roads radiated in all directions. Communications with the south-east were mainly provided by the Via Appia (the "queen of Roman roads," as Statius called it) and the Via Latina, which met close to Casilinum, at the crossing of the Volturnus, 3 m. N.W. of Capua, the second city in Italy in the 3rd century B.C., and the centre of the road system of Campania. Here the Via Appia turned eastward towards Beneventum, while the Via Popilia continued in a south-easterly direction through the Campanian plain and thence southwards through the mountains of Lucania and Bruttii as far as Rhegium. Coast roads of minor importance as means of through communication also existed on both sides of the "toe" of the boot. Other roads ran south from Capua to Cumae, Puteoli (the most important harbour of Campania), and Neapolis, which could also be reached by a coast road from Minturnae on the Via Appia. From Beneventum, another important road centre, the Via Appia itself ran south-east through the mountains past Venusia to Tarentum on the south-west coast of the "heel," and thence across Calabria to Brundusium, while Trajan's correction of it, following an older mule-track, ran north-east through the mountains and then through the lower ground of Apulia, reaching the coast at Barium. Both met at Brundusium, the principal port for the East. From Aequum Tuticum, on the Via Traiana, the Via Herculia ran to the south-east, crossing the older Via Appia, then south to Potentia and so on to join the Via Popilia in the centre of Lucania.

The only highroad of importance which left Rome and ran eastwards, the Via Valeria, was not completed as far as the Adriatic before the time of Claudius; but on the north and north-west started the main highways which communicated with central and northern Italy, and with all that part of the Roman empire which was accessible by land. The Via Salaria, a very ancient road, with its branch, the Via Caecilia, ran north-eastwards to the Adriatic coast and so also did the Via Flaminia, which reached the coast at Fanum Fortunae, and thence followed it to Ariminum. The road along the east coast from Fanum Fortunae down to Barium, which connected the terminations of the Via Salaria and Via Valeria, and of other roads farther south crossing from Campania, had no special name in ancient times, as far as we know. The Via Flaminia was the earliest and most important road to the north; and it was soon extended (in 187 B.C.) by the Via Aemilia running through Bononia as far as Placentia, in an almost absolutely straight line between the plain of the Po and the foot of the Apennines. In the same year a road was constructed over the Apennines from Bononia to Arretium, but it is difficult to suppose that it was not until later that the Via Cassia was made, giving a direct communication between Arretium and Rome. The Via Clodia was an alternative route to the Cassia for the first portion out of Rome, a branch having been built at the same time from Florentia to Lucca and Luna. Along the west coast the Via Aurelia ran up to Pisa and was continued by another Via Aemilia to Genoa. Thence the Via Postumia led to Dertona, Placentia and Cremona, while the Via Aemilia and the Via Julia Augusta continued along the coast into Gallia Narbonensis.

The road system of Cisalpine Gaul was mainly conditioned by the rivers which had to be crossed, and the Alpine passes which had to be approached.

Cremona, on the north bank of the Po, was an important meeting point of roads and Postilia (Ostiglia) another; so also was Patavium, farther east, and Altinum and Aquileia farther east still. Roads, indeed, were almost as plentiful as railways at the present day in the basin of the Po.

As to the roads leading out of Italy, from Aquileia roads diverged northward into Raetia, eastward to Noricum and Pannonia, and southwards to the Istrian and Dalmatian coasts. Farther west came the roads over the higher Alpine passes--the Brenner from Verona, the Septimer and the Splügen from Clavenna (Chiavenna), the Great and the Little St Bernard from Augusta Praetoria (Aosta), and the Mont Genèvre from Augusta Taurinorum (Turin).

Westward two short but important roads led on each side of the Tiber to the great harbour at its mouth; while the coast of Latium was supplied with a coast road by Septimius Severus. To the south-west the roads were short and of little importance.

On ancient Italian geography in general see articles in Pauly-Wissowa,
_Realencyclopädie_ (1899, sqq.); _Corpus inscriptionum Latinarum_
(Berlin, 1862 sqq.); G. Strafforello, _Geografia dell' Italia_ (Turin,
1890-1892); H. Nissen, _Italische Landeskunde_ (Berlin, 1883-1902);
also references in articles ROME, LATIUM, &c. (T. As.)

C. FROM 476 to 1796

The year 476 opened a new age for the Italian people. Odoacer, a chief of the Herulians, deposed Romulus, the last Augustus of the West, and placed the peninsula beneath the titular sway of the Byzantine emperors. At Pavia the barbarian conquerors of Italy proclaimed him king, and he received from Zeno the dignity of Roman patrician. Thus began that system of mixed government, Teutonic and Roman, which, in the absence of a national monarch, impressed the institutions of new Italy from the earliest date with dualism. The same revolution vested supreme authority in a non-resident and inefficient autocrat, whose title gave him the right to interfere in Italian affairs, but who lacked the power and will to rule the people for his own or their advantage. Odoacer inaugurated that long series of foreign rulers--Greeks, Franks, Germans, Spaniards and Austrians--who have successively contributed to the misgovernment of Italy from distant seats of empire.

I. _Gothic and Lombard Kingdoms._--In 488 Theodoric, king of the East Goths, received commission from the Greek emperor, Zeno, to undertake the affairs of Italy. He defeated Odoacer, drove him to Ravenna, besieged him there, and in 493 completed the conquest of the country by murdering the Herulian chief with his own hand. Theodoric respected the Roman institutions which he found in Italy, held the Eternal City sacred, and governed by ministers chosen from the Roman population. He settled at Ravenna, which had been the capital of Italy since the days of Honorius, and which still testifies by its monuments to the Gothic chieftain's Romanizing policy. Those who believe that the Italians would have gained strength by unification in a single monarchy must regret that this Gothic kingdom lacked the elements of stability. The Goths, except in the valley of the Po, resembled an army of occupation rather than a people numerous enough to blend with the Italic stock. Though their rule was favourable to the Romans, they were Arians; and religious differences, combined with the pride and jealousies of a nation accustomed to imperial honours, rendered the inhabitants of Italy eager to throw off their yoke. When, therefore, Justinian undertook the reconquest of Italy, his generals, Belisarius and Narses, were supported by the south. The struggle of the Greeks and the Goths was carried on for fourteen years, between 539 and 553, when Teias, the last Gothic king, was finally defeated in a bloody battle near Vesuvius. At its close the provinces of Italy were placed beneath Greek dukes, controlled by a governor-general, entitled exarch, who ruled in the Byzantine emperor's name at Ravenna.

The Lombards.

This new settlement lasted but a few years. Narses had employed Lombard auxiliaries in his campaigns against the Goths; and when he was recalled by an insulting message from the empress in 565, he is said to have invited this fiercest and rudest of the Teutonic clans to seize the spoils of Italy. Be this as it may, the Lombards, their ranks swelled by the Gepidae, whom they had lately conquered, and by the wrecks of other barbarian tribes, passed southward under their king Alboin in 568. The Herulian invaders had been but a band of adventurers; the Goths were an army; the Lombards, far more formidable, were a nation in movement. Pavia offered stubborn resistance; but after a three years' siege it was taken, and Alboin made it the capital of his new kingdom.

In order to understand the future history of Italy, it is necessary to form a clear conception of the method pursued by the Lombards in their conquest. Penetrating the peninsula, and advancing like a glacier or half-liquid stream of mud, they occupied the valley of the Po, and moved slowly downward through the centre of the country. Numerous as they were compared with their Gothic predecessors, they had not strength or multitude enough to occupy the whole peninsula. Venice, which since the days of Attila had offered an asylum to Roman refugees from the northern cities, was left untouched. So was Genoa with its Riviera. Ravenna, entrenched within her lagoons, remained a Greek city. Rome, protected by invincible prestige, escaped. The sea-coast cities of the south, and the islands, Sicily, Sardinia and Corsica, preserved their independence. Thus the Lombards neither occupied the extremities nor subjugated the brain-centre of the country. The strength of Alboin's kingdom was in the north; his capital, Pavia. As his people pressed southward, they omitted to possess themselves of the coasts; and what was worse for the future of these conquerors, the original impetus of the invasion was checked by the untimely murder of Alboin in 573. After this event, the semi-independent chiefs of the Lombard tribe, who borrowed the title of dukes from their Roman predecessors, seem to have been contented with consolidating their power in the districts each had occupied. The duchies of Spoleto in the centre, and of Benevento in the south, inserted wedge-like into the middle of the peninsula, and enclosing independent Rome, were but loosely united to the kingdom at Pavia. Italy was broken up into districts, each offering points for attack from without, and fostering the seeds of internal revolution. Three separate capitals must be discriminated--Pavia, the seat of the new Lombard kingdom; Ravenna, the garrison city of the Byzantine emperor; and Rome, the rallying point of the old nation, where the successor of St Peter was already beginning to assume that national protectorate which proved so influential in the future.

It is not necessary to write the history of the Lombard kingdom in detail. Suffice it to say that the rule of the Lombards proved at first far more oppressive to the native population, and was less intelligent of their old customs, than that of the Goths had been. Wherever the Lombards had the upper hand, they placed the country under military rule, resembling in its general character what we now know as the feudal system. Though there is reason to suppose that the Roman laws were still administered within the cities, yet the Lombard code was that of the kingdom; and the Lombards being Arians, they added the oppression of religious intolerance to that of martial despotism and barbarous cupidity. The Italians were reduced to the last extremity when Gregory the Great (590-604), having strengthened his position by diplomatic relations with the duchy of Spoleto, and brought about the conversion of the Lombards to orthodoxy, raised the cause of the remaining Roman population throughout Italy. The fruit of his policy, which made of Rome a counterpoise against the effete empire of the Greeks upon the one hand and against the pressure of the feudal kingdom on the other, was seen in the succeeding century. When Leo the Isaurian published his decrees against the worship of images in 726, Gregory II. allied himself with Liudprand, the Lombard king, threw off allegiance to Byzantium, and established the autonomy of Rome. This pope initiated the dangerous policy of playing one hostile force off against another with a view to securing independence. He used the Lombards in his struggle with the Greeks, leaving to his successors the duty of checking these unnatural allies. This was accomplished by calling the Franks in against the Lombards. Liudprand pressed hard, not only upon the Greek dominions of the exarchate, but also upon Rome. His successors, Rachis and Aistolf, attempted to follow the same game of conquest. But the popes, Gregory III., Zachary and Stephen II., determining at any cost to espouse the national cause and to aggrandize their own office, continued to rely upon the Franks. Pippin twice crossed the Alps, and forced Aistolf to relinquish his acquisitions, including Ravenna, Pentapolis, the coast towns of Romagna and some cities in the duchy of Spoleto. These he handed over to the pope of Rome. This donation of Pippin in 756 confirmed the papal see in the protectorate of the Italic party, and conferred upon it sovereign rights. The virtual outcome of the contest carried on by Rome since the year 726 with Byzantium and Pavia was to place the popes in the position held by the Greek exarch, and to confirm the limitation of the Lombard kingdom. We must, however, be cautious to remember that the south of Italy was comparatively unaffected. The dukes of the Greek empire and the Lombard dukes of Benevento, together with a few autonomous commercial cities, still divided Italy below the Campagna of Rome (see LOMBARDS).

Charles the Great and the Carolingians.

II. _Frankish Emperors._--The Franko-Papal alliance, which conferred a crown on Pippin and sovereign rights upon the see of Rome, held within itself that ideal of mutually supporting papacy and empire which exercised so powerful an influence in medieval history. When Charles the Great (Charlemagne) deposed his father-in-law Desiderius, the last Lombard king, in 774, and when he received the circlet of the empire from Leo III. at Rome in 800, he did but complete and ratify the compact offered to his grandfather, Charles Martel, by Gregory III. The relations between the new emperor and the pope were ill defined; and this proved the source of infinite disasters to Italy and Europe in the sequel. But for the moment each seemed necessary to the other; and that sufficed. Charles took possession of the kingdom of Italy, as limited by Pippin's settlement. The pope was confirmed in his rectorship of the cities ceded by Aistolf, with the further understanding, tacit rather than expressed, that, even as he had wrung these provinces for the Italic people from both Greeks and Lombards, so in the future he might claim the protectorate of such portions of Italy, external to the kingdom, as he should be able to acquire. This, at any rate, seems to be the meaning of that obscure re-settlement of the peninsula which Charles effected. The kingdom of Italy, transmitted on his death by Charles the Great, and afterwards confirmed to his grandson Lothar by the peace of Verdun in 843, stretched from the Alps to Terracina. The duchy of Benevento remained tributary, but independent. The cities of Gaeta and Naples, Sicily and the so-called Theme of Lombardy in South Apulia and Calabria, still recognized the Byzantine emperor. Venice stood aloof, professing a nominal allegiance to the East. The parcels into which the Lombards had divided the peninsula remained thus virtually unaltered, except for the new authority acquired by the see of Rome.

Internally Charles left the affairs of the Italian kingdom much as he found them, except that he appears to have pursued the policy of breaking up the larger fiefs of the Lombards, substituting counts for their dukes, and adding to the privileges of the bishops. We may reckon these measures among the earliest advantages extended to the cities, which still contained the bulk of the old Roman population, and which were destined to intervene with decisive effect two centuries later in Italian history. It should also here be noticed that the changes introduced into the holding of the fiefs, whether by altering their boundaries or substituting Frankish for Lombard vassals, were chief among the causes why the feudal system took no permanent hold in Italy. Feudalism was not at any time a national institution. The hierarchy of dukes and marquises and counts consisted of foreign soldiers imposed on the indigenous inhabitants; and the rapid succession of conquerors, Lombards, Franks and Germans following each other at no long interval, and each endeavouring to weaken the remaining strength of his predecessor, prevented this alien hierarchy from acquiring fixity by permanence of tenure. Among the many miseries inflicted upon Italy by the frequent changes of her northern rulers, this at least may be reckoned a blessing.

Frankish and Italian kings.

The Italians acknowledged eight kings of the house of Charles the Great, ending in Charles the Fat, who was deposed in 888. After them followed ten sovereigns, some of whom have been misnamed Italians by writers too eager to catch at any resemblance of national glory for a people passive in the hands of foreign masters. The truth is that no period in Italian history was less really glorious than that which came to a close in 961 by Berengar II.'s cession of his rights to Otto the Great. It was a period marked in the first place by the conquests of the Saracens, who began to occupy Sicily early in the 9th century, overran Calabria and Apulia, took Bari and threatened Rome. In the second place it was marked by a restoration of the Greeks to power. In 890 they established themselves again at Bari, and ruled the Theme of Lombardy by means of an officer entitled Catapan. In the third place it was marked by a decline of good government in Rome. Early in the 10th century the papacy fell into the hands of a noble family, known eventually as the counts of Tusculum, who almost succeeded in rendering the office hereditary, and in uniting the civil and ecclesiastical functions of the city under a single member of their house. It is not necessary to relate the scandals of Marozia's and Theodora's female reign, the infamies of John XII. or the intrigues which tended to convert Rome into a duchy. The most important fact for the historian of Italy to notice is that during this time the popes abandoned, not only their high duties as chiefs of Christendom, but also their protectorate of Italian liberties. A fourth humiliating episode in this period was the invasion of the Magyar barbarians, who overran the north of Italy, and reduced its fairest provinces to the condition of a wilderness. Anarchy and misery are indeed the main features of that long space of time which elapsed between the death of Charles the Great and the descent of Otto. Through the almost impenetrable darkness and confusion we only discern this much, that Italy was powerless to constitute herself a nation.