The Romans

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The Roman Empire was the phase of the ancient Roman civilization characterized by an autocratic form of government. Therefore can the then Romans be classed as Italians? Did they calss themselves as Italians?

They did come from Italy.

[Kromovaracun]

Italians perhaps in the geographical sense - but I don't think the Romans would have considered themselves Italians. Remember that throughout the Republic's history, there was a major issue over whether to enfranchise the Italians they had conquered.

Personally, I don't think it's quite fair to consider Romans Italians as they're only within Italy in the modern political sense - citizens of the Republic were citizens of Rome, not Italy. But it depends how much significance you place on sheer geography.

[kempie]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Italy

[spaced]

cool, makes perfect sense now!

Cheers guys!

[dundurn]

Go see a Roma v Lazio game - they're still arguing about it!

[Octavius]

During the Republic, Italia (which extended at the time from Rubicon to Calabria) 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 a portion of Italy that changed through time. 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 Pula; 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 (2nd century BC), Rome allowed the Italian allies to enter with full rights in the Roman society, giving the Roman citizenship to all the Italic peoples.

To cut a long story short, and much toing and throing (of Emperors as well as javelins!) In 476, with the death of Romulus Augustus and the return of the imperial ensigns to Constantinoples, the Western Roman Empire ends; for few years Italia stayed united under Odoacer rule, but later it was divided between several kingdoms, and would not be re-united for another thirteen centuries in 1871.

[Octavius]

Silly me, I said javelins and of course I meant pilae.

[kempie]

Octavius - If you are going to lift tracts of information from Wikipedia (which should also include author credit under its "copyleft" principle - a link to the page being sufficient), it behoves you to at least ensure that any snippets you wish to inject into that data are correct, such as the unification of the Kingdom of Italy occuring 17th March, 1861.

[Kromovaracun]

That's when Italy as a political entity was first established, but Rome was occupied in 1871, and thus that's usually taken as the final stage (if you like) of the unification.

Octavium has demonstrated on multiple occasions his knowledge of (particularly ancient) history. I'd be very careful of accusing him of lifting it off Wiki.

Coincidentally, Octavium, I would like to ask if you have a 'reccomended reading' list of Roman history to mind. I've read Holland's Rubicon and a bit of other stuff, but do any particularly good references come to mind?

[Kromovaracun]

Well, waddaya know - his name is actually Octavius.

Huh.