Abstract
This chapter investigates trends in settlement patterns and urban occupation in eastern Cisalpine Gaul and Etruria (second-fifth centuries CE) in order to assess whether the decline in rural (and urban) settlements observed in parts of Italy from the third century onwards was a result of post-Antonine plague demographic collapse, climate change, or the outcome of other societal and political processes. The case studies discussed stress the high degree of regional differentiation and complexity that can be reconstructed for Roman imperial Italy on the basis of archaeological data. While it is not easy to identify the cause of the empirical phenomena that one can infer from the archaeology, the data from the two case studies suggest that social and economic factors reflecting different regional realities are the most plausible explanation of the phenomena discernible in the archaeological record.
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Notes
- 1.
For an overview of this debate, see Marzano (2007).
- 2.
The nature of the ‘plague’ (possibly smallpox) and its demographic impact are debated; see the essays in Lo Cascio (2012).
- 3.
Also known as the Roman Warm Period, it denotes a period of, on average, warm, wet and stable climate across much of the Roman Empire; its chronological boundaries are not firmly defined. Sometimes it is given as the period from c. 300 BCE to 300 CE; Harper (2018, 44) proposes c.200 BCE–150 CE as “a coarse abstraction imposed on a range of evidence, but not arbitrarily”. On reconstructing the Roman climate: McCormick and Harper (2018).
- 4.
- 5.
The Bassa Modenese, or simply ‘La Bassa’, is part of the northern territory of the province of Modena, and measures ca. 15 × 40 km. This area of low land is at less than 25 m a.s.l. and is crossed by two tributaries of the Po, the Serchia and Panaro Rivers.
- 6.
A survey of the territory of Mutina carried out in the 1980s is only available as a schematic site catalogue, with no methodological information on the survey or criteria followed for site classification: see Launaro (2011, 107–108 and Table A.3).
- 7.
Animal husbandry, probably sheep rearing since Mutina was known for its quality wool (e.g. see Strabo 7.1.12), is suggested not only by the type of plants identified, which indicate an open/pasture-like landscape, but also by coprophilous fungi; see Bosi et al. 2019, 14.
- 8.
See also Marchesini and Marvelli (2017, 300–301) on the villa site of S. Agata Bolognese, where in the fourth/fifth century CE humid areas and areas covered by woods increased, a possible consequence of diminished human effort in the management of the environment.
- 9.
Surface finds include also marble fragments, mosaic tesserae, etc.
- 10.
Matteazzi (2014a) for the reasons why this centuriation system should date to the Augustan age.
- 11.
Plin., Historia Naturalis 3.130; cf. CIL 5.2501.
- 12.
- 13.
Fora were not proper urban centres, but a number of fora in this region, such as Forum Popilii, Forum Livii, Forum Cornelii, Forum Iulii, etc., received municipal status when Cisalpine Gaul was annexed to Italy in 42/41 BCE. Even if these centres were at best just ‘micro-cities’ (Maiuro 2017, 106), the status of municipium made them ‘proper cities’ from a juridical point of view.
- 14.
See also other contributions in Ortalli and Heinzelmann (2003).
- 15.
A Roman domus was destroyed in the third century; in the late fourth/early fifth a new, large house, richly decorated, was built on this spot: Negrelli (2017, 437).
- 16.
On the complex issues related to climatic studies and the difficulties in obtaining coherent high-resolution reconstructions, see Manning (2013).
- 17.
Jongman (2012) notes, however, that tree rings from Central Europe indicate possible drought conditions for the years preceding the Antonine Plague.
- 18.
It is believed that already in the Republican period the mouth of the Po had advanced c.13 km past Spina as a result of the draining of marshes and centuriation of the plain of Cisalpine Gaul of the second century BCE: Maiuro (2017, 114).
- 19.
As we have seen above, the study of Mutina’s archaeobotanical data by Bosi et al. (2019) does not suggest a cessation of vine cultivation in the period for which the authors of the study hypothesize more unstable and wetter climatic conditions. It is also worth remembering the oft-quoted testimony of Strabo (5.1.7) about viticulture in the marshes around Ravenna: the vines are said to have grown and fruited quickly and in abundance, but to have then died within four or five years.
- 20.
Seeds/fruits are in this period 13% vs 47% for the first- to second-century period; cereals, on average, consist in only 3% vs 6% for the earlier phase. It has to be noted that the authors of this overview do not indicate the number of sites and samples considered for each period, so one has to trust them that such decline is real and not the effect of a smaller sample size.
- 21.
- 22.
Desippus, Scythica, fr. 7 = FGrHist 100.
- 23.
Scriptores Historiae Augustae, Aurel., 21.1–3; 18.4; 19.4; Aurelius Victor, De Vita et Moribus Imperatorum Romanorum, 35.2.
- 24.
The province of Modena was possibly spared by these invasions, since no coin hoards dating to this period were found there.
- 25.
Erdkamp (2019, 431).
- 26.
Overviews in Launaro (2011, 110–113; 115; 117–119), with previous bibliography.
- 27.
For example, Plut., Ti. Gracch. 8; cf. Wilson (2004).
- 28.
- 29.
These amphorae are attributed to the senatorial gens of the Sestii, whom Cicero mentions as having properties in the ager Cosanus (Cic., Att. 15.27.1) and may have owned the Settefinestre villa. See Manacorda (1981).
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Marzano, A. (2021). Figures in an Imperial Landscape: Ecological and Societal Factors on Settlement Patterns and Agriculture in Roman Italy. In: Erdkamp, P., Manning, J.G., Verboven, K. (eds) Climate Change and Ancient Societies in Europe and the Near East. Palgrave Studies in Ancient Economies. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-81103-7_17
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