Urban settlements during the Roman conquest

The Italian peninsula underwent many changes in terms of types and distributions of urban centres during and after the period of the Roman conquest (350 BC to 300 AD). The EU-funded project ROMURBITAL systematically documented and analysed these changes. Urban sites are traditionally studied on a case-by-case or regional basis, but a peninsula-wide study allows the identification and elucidation of processes operating at a larger geographical scale.

The project’s research was facilitated by the creation of an analytical database and a GIS of nearly 600 higher-order settlements. “Higher-order settlements” are defined as those exercising control over a territorial area including colonies and municipia. Historical processes were quantified and defined geospatially. The project’s specific research questions determined the database architecture.

The project’s data were collated exclusively from published works, most of which date from 1990 onwards. Georeferenced locations were recorded, and the archaeological data comprised diagnostic indicators for urban development (metrological data, urban planning, civic architecture). Information from ancient texts was recorded, such as the names of the cultural groups associated with sites, the local chronologies of the Roman conquest, and the Roman legal statuses of towns.

This is the first study to analyse ancient urbanism at the peninsula-wide level using computer-based techniques. The results are being published in articles that address urbanisation processes during a number of specific historical periods.

A pronounced increase in the number of urban sites in the early Hellenistic period occurred in the same areas where increases in the number of rural sites are also documented. Chronologically these processes coincided with the Roman conquest, yet they took place both in regions impacted by the conquest as well as others which were not. This suggests that urbanisation developed in spite of the conquest rather than as a result of it.

The results will be especially useful for urban archaeologists, demographic historians and landscape archaeologists, and will help to contextualise historical and archaeological narratives of the Roman / Italian past.