Roman Italy

Italia was the homeland of the Romans and metropole of Rome's empire in classical antiquity. According to Roman mythology, Italy was the ancestral home promised by Jupiter to Aeneas of Troy and his descendants, whose descendants were the founders of Rome. Aside from the legendary accounts, Rome was an Italian city-state that changed its form of government from kingdom to republic and then grew within the context of a peninsula dominated by the Celts in the North, the Etruscans and Umbrians in the Centre, and the Messapians and Greeks colonies in the south.

The consolidation of Italy into a single entity occurred during the Roman expansion in the peninsula, when Rome formed a permanent association with most of the local tribes and cities. The strength of the Italian confederacy was a crucial factor in the rise of Rome, starting with the Punic and Macedonian wars between the 3rd and 2nd century BC. As provinces were being established throughout the Mediterranean, Italy maintained a special status which made it "not a province, but the Domina of the provinces". Such a status meant that Roman magistrates exercised the Imperium domi within Italy, rather than the Imperium militiae used abroad. Italy's inhabitants had Latin Rights as well as religious and financial privileges.

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