Territory and Population
Maps
In 343 BC Rome was the pre-eminent city on the Italian peninsula, in terms is
size, population and state territory. Only Greek Tarentum and Campanian Capua rivaled
its proportions, but they could not rival Rome’s power. Its contiguous lands,
the hills, valleys and groves about the city, studded with small villages and intensely
farmed, had been the natural arena of fighting for Romans since the beginning of
the iron age. Significant gains, however, made in the preceding fifty years,
expanded yet further the already sizable territory and population gap which
existed between the city and its immediate neighbours. A summation of these
gains can be considered as follows: south of the city, several Latins towns such
as Tusculum and Labici were directly incorporated into the Roman state, with
full right of citizenship. About other Latin towns, lands had been seized and
likely added to the ager Publicus, land owned publicly by the state and
leased out for use, mostly to rich land-owners. Viritane distributions,
those made out more commonly to the lower classes of Romans and without the
organization of a colony, were placed in non-adjacent territory to the rest of
the ager Romanus, near to the Latin colony of Norba and the town of
Satricum on the Pomptine plain. This distribution led to the creation of two new
tribes (Livy 7.15) in 358 BC (the Publilia and Pomptina) in the Comitia
Tributa, Rome’s plebeian assembly. Thus all their members, whether Roman
or otherwise, held full Roman citizenship. Adding to these allotments, archeology
shows that a small maritime colony was established at Ostia near the mouth of
the Tiber sometime in the 4th century BC, possibly following some
large-scale Greek sea-raids in 349 BC (Livy 7.25). North of the city, the
territory of Veii, roughly 562 sq. km of good quality farmland, was incorporated
into the ager Romanus as both ager Publicus and in viritane
allotments, leading, as per Livy (6.6), to the creation of another four new
tribes (the Stellatine, Tormentine, Sabatine and Arnean) in 387
BC.
Further
to these significant additions,
aggressive campaigning in southern Etruria starting in 389 BC, the year after
Gallic sack, led to the conquest and annexation of the two former Faliscan towns
of Sutrium and Nepete, pushing Roman hegemony to the borders of Caere and
Tarquinii and the natural barrier of the Monti Cimini. These colonies were of
Latin status, and so outside the boundary of the ager Romanus, but they
were apparently comprised of only Roman settlers, allowing the formation of a
tight bond with the home state. Outside of the sovereign Roman territory there
also existed in the mid-4th century BC a combination of colonies and
towns which, although not possessing Roman citizenship, did fall under the yoke
of Roman hegemony. To this should be added all of the Nomen Latium, the
old Latin city-states, the towns of the Hernici of the Trerus valley, the now
reduced strongholds of the Aequi about the Mons Algedus, aside from Antium and
Privernum all of the former principal communities of the Volscians in southern
Latium and finally the newly won territories of the Aruncian people in the hills
south of the Pomptine plain, including Formiae and Fundi. Finally, The various
non-Roman peoples who were allowed to live free on the land beside the Roman and
Latin colonists throughout south Etruria and Latium, who it was the profound
hope and policy of the Roman government to assimilate, should also be included
as a significant proportion of Rome’s functioning hegemony in 343 BC.
The
numbers which we can attribute to Rome’s territory, population and hegemony
during the era following 400 BC, that which are most commonly cited by modern
scholars, seem to be those reached by J. Beloch, A. Afzelius and C. Ampolo. The
baseline we can use then, being the population and land held by Rome in 500 BC
at the beginning of the Republic, is set at a city size of 285 hectares
(Cornell, 203, citing Ampolo, 1926), with a population of roughly 30,000 –
35000 (Cornell, 207 citing Ampolo) and an ager Romanus of 822 sq. km
(Cornell, 205-7 and Forsythe, 116, both citing Ampolo). If it is accepted, as it
is by some scholars (Cornell, 209-10, 1995), that the Romans exercised a degree
of control over the smaller Latin communities during the later 6th
century BC, north to Fidenae and as far down the coast as Circeii, then a figure
of roughly 3,500 sq km can be arrived at for Rome’s hegemony, however it is relatively
certain that at 500 BC, southern Latium was in the process of being conquered by
invading Volscians, who by 495 BC were hard up against the borders of Ardea and
Lanuvium (Livy, 2.25). Nevertheless, it should be noted that already at 500 BC,
Rome was much larger than its Latin neighbours and developing on a par with the
principal cities of the Etruscan league, now at the height of their power
(Cornell, 203, Forsythe, 117). One hundred years later, at 400 BC, we see Rome
in the early stages of expansion, having conquered Fidenae and Veii and
incorporated Tusculum and Labici wholesale. The city now comprised the area
within the Servian walls, mentioned as being under construction by Livy in 378
BC (Livy, 6.32), which is measured at 427 hectares (Cornell, 204, citing Ampolo,
1980). At 396 BC, the ager Romanus likewise had roughly doubled in size
to circa 1,582 sq. km (Cornell, 320, citing Beloch, 1926). The area comprising
Roman influence and hegemony at this time had, however, contracted
significantly, as the Foedus Cassinum gave the smaller Latin communities
the freedom of an independent foreign policy, while in turn cooperating with
Rome in mutual defense. Even this arrangement, however, was null and void only 5
years later, when in 389 BC (Livy 6.2) Rome’s pact with the Latins and
Hernicians collapsed into a state of conflict.
The following 50 years from 400
BC show a remarkable increase in the Roman state and its hegemony, as Rome’s
legions lashed out in all directions following the Gallic sack of 390 BC. The
inclusion of the new tribes mentioned above, the small colony at Ostia,
as well as various other small territories seized by way of indemnities
on defeated enemies expanded sovereign Roman territory by a rough estimate of
another 500 sq. km for a total of circa 2000 sq. km. Roman hegemony likewise had
greatly increased, once again taking in the reluctant towns of the Nomen
Latinum, the Hernici, the former lands of the now pacified Aequi about the
Mons Algedus and the new colonies of Sutrium and Nepete in southern Etruria.
E.T. Salmon, citing A. Afzelius, puts Roman hegemony in terms of territory and
population in 343 BC at 6,095 sq. km and 317,400, on the eve of the war with
Samnium. Thus we can see that Rome, already the largest and most populous
city-state in Latium in 500 BC, had by 343 BC become a colossus in Tyrrhenian
Italy and major power in the central Mediterranean.
Back
| Contents | Next