Books by Rafael Scopacasa
Oxbow Books, 2016
This pdf of your paper in Burial and social change in first-millennium BC Italy: approaching soci... more This pdf of your paper in Burial and social change in first-millennium BC Italy: approaching social agents belongs to the publishers Oxbow Books and it is their copyright. As author you are licenced to make up to 50 offprints from it, but beyond that you may not publish it on the World Wide Web until three years from publication (November 2019), unless the site is a limited access intranet (password protected). If you have queries about this please contact the editorial department at Oxbow Books
In the first millennium BC, communities in Italy underwent crucial transformations which scholars... more In the first millennium BC, communities in Italy underwent crucial transformations which scholars have subsumed under the heading of ‘state formation’, namely increased social stratification, the centralisation of political power, and in some cases urbanisation (e.g. Bartoloni 2006; Bradley 2000; Capuis 2009; Guidi 2006; Mandolesi 1999; Herring and Lomas 2000; Pacciarelli 1991; 2001; Smith 1996; 2005). However, comparatively little attention has been given to the question of how these key developments resonated across the broader transect of communities, and how social groups other than ruling élites both promoted these changes and experienced their effects. Studies on comparable developments in the Greek world (e.g. Morris 1998) have already stressed the need to move beyond traditional approaches to state formation, and examine the phenomenon as involving not only top-down institutional structures, but also particular ways of thinking and of understanding ‘community’ and the individual’s role in it – a nexus of ideological and cultural values (Cuozzo 2003; 2005). Recent Anglophone scholarship on agency has explored the complex interplay between people’s active role in creating their world and the constraints posed by coercive social structures on individual lives (e.g. Giddens 1984; Dobres and Robb 2000; Gardner 2004). However, such research has only sporadically influenced studies on protohistoric Italy, which nonetheless offers a unique context for exploring these issues given its great regional diversity and variety of community forms and networks, whose full extent remains to be explored in light of recent theoretical developments such as network theories (e.g. Malkin 2011).
The proposed volume harnesses innovative approaches to the exceptionally rich mortuary evidence of first-millennium BC Italy, to investigate the roles and identities of social actors who either struggled for power and social recognition, or were manipulated and exploited by superior authorities in a phase of tumultuous change throughout the Mediterranean. Funerary remains are the most substantial evidence base for the period, and offer a unique opportunity to explore how individuals and communities from different Italian regions represented and re-created themselves in the rites of passage generated by the supreme crisis of death, often leading to significant socio-cultural adjustments for families and wider social segments (Morris 1992; Parker Pearson 1999). Whereas previous scholarship has generally focused on wealthy élite graves (e.g. Fulminante 2003; Silvestrini and Sabbatini 2008; Von Eles 2002), this book considers the broader spectrum represented in the funerary record, including demographic groups that have rarely been the primary subject of research in Italy (e.g. women and children) as well as individuals left at the margins of privileged social networks, such as people denied formal burial or the victims of ritual violence. Identity (Insoll 2007), connectivity/networks (Horden and Purcell 2000; Malkin 2003; 2011), gender (Whitehouse 1998; 2009) agency (Gardner 2004) and personhood (Fowler 2004) are some of the key conceptual lenses through which the contributors to this volume approach the changing notions of power, community and the individual’s role, addressing questions such as: how can the social role of women, children, and non-élite individuals be reconstructed from the way in which these roles are expressed/negotiated through mortuary ritual in increasingly complex social contexts? How does the status of both élite and supposedly ‘marginal’ social groups change across time and space within the framework of evolving socio-political structures? To what extent can the analysis of funerary evidence offer reliable information on the forms of power and authority emerging in societies where inequality is a pervasive feature? To what extent do alternative social practices and identities, as opposed to élite ones, become archaeologically visible when one explores the less ‘prestigious’ funerary evidence that is often neglected?
The book has its origins in the international workshop “Burial and Social Change in Ancient Italy, 9th-5th century BC: Approaching Social Agents”, organised by the editors of the proposed volume at the British School at Rome in June 2011. The aim of the workshop was to bring together a range of international specialists working on ancient Italy to discuss new approaches to archaeological mortuary evidence, and construct innovative frameworks for investigating social complexity.
Papers by Rafael Scopacasa
Resumo: Grupos étnicos, tanto no mundo antigo como no atual, não são entidades fixas e claramente... more Resumo: Grupos étnicos, tanto no mundo antigo como no atual, não são entidades fixas e claramente definidas, mas agrupamentos fluidos, unidos por ideias de origem comum e semelhanças culturais percebidas. Que este era o caso dos povos itálicos é evidente a partir dos relatos antigos. Este artigo discutirá alguns aspectos da representação dos samnitas nos textos greco-romanos, atentando especialmente à construção de estereótipos culturais sobre esse povo itálico e propondo uma análise preliminar dos mesmos, em vista dos contextos históricos em que eles foram produzidos.
This article discusses how International Relations (IR) theory can contribute to our understandin... more This article discusses how International Relations (IR) theory can contribute to our understanding of Roman hegemony, by examining Samnite responses to the shifting power balance during the early Roman expansion, in light of Robert Jervis’s concept of misperception in international politics. While Rome was arguably the self-conscious hegemonic power in Italy by 272 BC, Samnite polities seem to have carried on treating Rome as one of several key players, but not as an overriding game-changer, at least until the Hannibalic war (218-202 BC). This apparent gap between perceived and de facto international order may be understood in view of the Samnites’ possible misperception of the international environment, since they continued to behave as if they were still independent players in an international anarchy. Possibly, such behaviour may have been encouraged by Rome’s nominal recognition of Samnite independence after the Pyrrhic war. These conclusions have implications for how we conceptualize the Roman conquest, suggesting the need to move beyond the ‘Roman-vs.-native’ dualism when thinking about Roman hegemony
Processes of Cultural Change and Integration in the Roman World, 2015
Papers of the British School at Rome, 2012
The Encyclopedia of Ancient History, 2012
The Encyclopedia of Ancient History, 2012
This article addresses the meaning of community in an area of the ancient world that is normally ... more This article addresses the meaning of community in an area of the ancient world that is normally seen to diverge from the paradigm of the classical city-state, by examining the role of sanctuaries in the articulation of identity and belonging. The focus is on Samnium (central Italy) in the last four centuries BC, where archaeological and historical evidence, including a wealth of recent discoveries, supports a dynamic view of a region that is traditionally associated with a cohesive ethnic group. Whilst it is true that the major sanctuary at Pietrabbondante fostered the construction of Samnite ethnic identity as a form of resistance to Roman expansion, this article highlights the importance of other types and levels of belonging in light of a broader range of cult sites. The concept of ‘nested identities’ (a scenario where individuals identify simultaneously with overlapping groups) can bring about a more nuanced view of how cult served to negotiate belonging on ethnic and non-ethnic levels. I hope to show that local communities, and particularly the local elites, were able to function independently rather than simply as the building blocks of the Samnite ethnos.
American Journal of Archaeology 118.3, Apr 2014
This article approaches gender as a means of understanding cultural identity in Italy before the ... more This article approaches gender as a means of understanding cultural identity in Italy before the Roman conquest. Most scholars have assumed based on written sources that the ancient inhabitants of Samnium, who are noted for their fierce resistance to Rome, shared a gender system in which men were primarily regarded as warriors and women as caretakers of the household. Archaeological support for this view has been sought in the contrast between burials containing weapons (assumed to belong to men) and those containing jewelry or personal ornaments (attributed to women). In line with recent studies that challenge such a view, I employ statistical methods to verify correlations between grave goods, sex, age, and social status. Results reveal that cultural attitudes toward gender among the Samnites were complex. In many cases, gender configurations were structured in such a way that both men and women performed similar social activities and may have participated as equals in commensal politics. These findings demonstrate the potential for quantitative archaeological analysis to enhance our knowledge of cultural identity and social organization in an area of the ancient world for which there is very little written evidence.* introduction Ancient Samnium, which corresponds to presentday Molise, south Abruzzo, and north Campania (fig. 1), is described in ancient historical writing as the homeland of the Samnites. Authors such as Livy,
in A. Cooley (ed.) A Companion to Roman Italy, 2014
Rome’s encroachment on Italy is often seen as the process by which a unique city-state conquered ... more Rome’s encroachment on Italy is often seen as the process by which a unique city-state conquered the entire peninsula in a surprisingly short period of time. Yet in many ways the Roman expansion was an Italian phenomenon, in the sense that Italian communities and institutions had a decisive impact on the development of Roman hegemony from the outset. The Roman drive towards expansion can to some extent be understood as a product of the harsh interstate environment of Archaic Italy, where constant warfare encouraged aggressive competition (Eckstein 2006). The city’s expansion was possible because Italian communities supplied the necessary manpower and resources, fought the wars, and participated in colonisation schemes of various kinds (Cornell 1989; Bradley and Wilson 2006). The means by which Rome maintained its dominance with the cooperation of Italian aristocracies owed much to earlier forms of elite collaboration from the Archaic period (Gabba 1989), and helped to preserve the social structure of many Italian communities (Terrenato 2007). It was not inevitable that Rome should emerge as the sole hegemonic power. In the fourth and early third centuries the Romans encroached on Italy almost as much as Italians encroached on Rome and on each other. It was only after the Hannibalic war (202 BC) that Rome became the political hub of the peninsula, but even then we have evidence that many Italian states behaved as independent partners rather than dependents.
For much of the twentieth century, the Roman expansion in Italy was seen as a steady process of unification, not just in a political sense but socio-cultural as well (e.g. Sherwin-White 1973, 159). This view can be traced back to nineteenth-century Germany, and particularly to the work of Theodor Mommsen. His idea that Italian communities almost inevitably converged under Roman leadership was probably influenced by the atmosphere of German national unification in his own day, and the modern expectations of nation building under the guidance of a dominant state, in this case Prussia (Mouritsen 2006).
Yet on a deeper level, this teleological view of Roman encroachment reflects the surviving historical narratives from antiquity, which were the chief sources available to Mommsen. The ancient historical accounts portray the Roman “conquest” of Italy as the first stage in the city’s inevitable rise to world domination. Whilst such narratives offer an invaluable basis for understanding how Rome extended its territory and power, they also pose serious challenges. With the exception of Polybius, most of the surviving texts were written from the mid-first century BC onwards, at least 200 years after the events that they describe. These authors wrote about the mid-Republican past in view of their own political agendas and anxieties as upper-class Romans of the late Republic and Principate (Dench 2005, 152 ff; Kraus and Woodman 1997). Although individuals such as Livy were eager to understand how Roman hegemony had come about, they were mostly unconcerned with social and administrative transformations. They offer vivid accounts of battles and wars, but only faint sketches of the political settlements between Rome and Italian communities.
On the other hand, a growing body of epigraphic, numismatic, and archaeological sources – from survey data to ceramics and architecture – offer a rich evidence base that is contemporaneous with the process of Roman encroachment. This material allows us to explore the social and cultural transformations that Italian communities experienced, ultimately supporting alternative histories of Republican Italy. Yet the fragmentary nature of the archaeological and epigraphic record also makes for very challenging problems of interpretation, as we shall see below.
This chapter discusses the role of Italian communities in Rome’s rise as a hegemonic power between the fifth and early second centuries BC, and how this process transformed Italy as a result. I begin by sketching a narrative of events that mark the extension of Roman territory and power in Italy, from the founding of the Republic (509 BC) to the start of the first Punic war (264 BC) – seeking, whenever possible, to reconstruct the Italian perspective on these events. The second part of the chapter discusses the social and political impact of Roman dominance between the late fourth and early second centuries. I emphasise the current shift towards a new narrative of Roman hegemony in third-century Italy, where colonisation, extensions of citizenship, and alliances are being approached not simply as instruments of Roman oppression, but also as complex and changing phenomena in which Italians as well as Romans played a key role. Whilst colonisation surely helped to consolidate Roman territorial expansion at the expense of Italian communities, the colonies themselves were autonomous communities with permeable borders, which included large numbers of Italians – both locals and migrants (Bradley and Wilson 2006; Coles 2009). Colonies and the extension of citizenship promoted new patterns of integration and mobility across the peninsula through trade, intermarriage, and army service, which affected Rome as well as Italy (Roselaar, ed. 2012). Growing knowledge of such mobility allows us to rethink the link between Roman hegemony and the cultural changes that we see in the material record of Italy in the fourth-second centuries, which is discussed towards the end of this chapter.
TRAC 09. Proceedings of the nineteenth annual Theoretical Roman Archaeology Conference. , 2010
Conference/ Session proposals by Rafael Scopacasa
Ideological obsolescence, faltering powers and accelerated socio-political change: Case studies f... more Ideological obsolescence, faltering powers and accelerated socio-political change: Case studies from Iron Age Italy SESSION 3 RECKONING WITH ROME Dr FRANK DAUBNER (Universität Stuttgart) Continuity and change in Macedonian society after the Roman conquest Dr MAURIZIO BUORA (Società Friulana di Archeologia) and Dr STEFANO MAGNANI (Università degli Studi di Udine) Forms of interaction and integration between indigenous and Roman settlers in the territory of Aquileia during the second and first centuries BC SESSION 4 (UN)STABLE ÉLITES Dr GUY BRADLEY (Cardiff University) Fluidity, mobility and social crisis in archaic central Italian élites Dr VERA ZANONI (University of Pavia) Beyond the graves. Crisis and continuity in the Hellenistic funerary contexts from the Calvario cemetery (Tarquinia, VT) Prof. MARIASSUNTA CUOZZO (Università del Molise) (TO BE CONFIRMED) Dialettica interculturale, dinamiche di interazione e resistenza nelle comunità della Campania al passaggio tra Prima età del Ferro e Orientalizzante
Talks by Rafael Scopacasa
Talk given at the Roman Connectivity Forum, University of Exeter (20 Jun 2016)
R. Scopacasa and E. Perego (2016) The Samnite State of Emergency: approaching crisis events and r... more R. Scopacasa and E. Perego (2016) The Samnite State of Emergency: approaching crisis events and resolution strategies in Republican Italy (400-80 BC). Invited talk delivered at the State of the Samnites conference, held in January 2016 at KNIR (Rome)
E. Perego, R. Scopacasa et al. Collapse or Survival? Theoretical and Methodological Approaches to... more E. Perego, R. Scopacasa et al. Collapse or Survival? Theoretical and Methodological Approaches to Micro-Dynamics of Crisis in the Late Prehistoric and Early Roman Central Mediterranean. Podium presentation for the CRASIS Annual Meeting & Masterclass: CRISIS!The identification, analysis, and commemoration of crises in the ancient world. University of Groningen, 5-6 February 2015
Conference/session proposals by Rafael Scopacasa
The aim of this workshop is to explore localized phenomena of crisis, unrest and survival in the ... more The aim of this workshop is to explore localized phenomena of crisis, unrest and survival in the central Mediterranean during the first millennium BC.
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Books by Rafael Scopacasa
The proposed volume harnesses innovative approaches to the exceptionally rich mortuary evidence of first-millennium BC Italy, to investigate the roles and identities of social actors who either struggled for power and social recognition, or were manipulated and exploited by superior authorities in a phase of tumultuous change throughout the Mediterranean. Funerary remains are the most substantial evidence base for the period, and offer a unique opportunity to explore how individuals and communities from different Italian regions represented and re-created themselves in the rites of passage generated by the supreme crisis of death, often leading to significant socio-cultural adjustments for families and wider social segments (Morris 1992; Parker Pearson 1999). Whereas previous scholarship has generally focused on wealthy élite graves (e.g. Fulminante 2003; Silvestrini and Sabbatini 2008; Von Eles 2002), this book considers the broader spectrum represented in the funerary record, including demographic groups that have rarely been the primary subject of research in Italy (e.g. women and children) as well as individuals left at the margins of privileged social networks, such as people denied formal burial or the victims of ritual violence. Identity (Insoll 2007), connectivity/networks (Horden and Purcell 2000; Malkin 2003; 2011), gender (Whitehouse 1998; 2009) agency (Gardner 2004) and personhood (Fowler 2004) are some of the key conceptual lenses through which the contributors to this volume approach the changing notions of power, community and the individual’s role, addressing questions such as: how can the social role of women, children, and non-élite individuals be reconstructed from the way in which these roles are expressed/negotiated through mortuary ritual in increasingly complex social contexts? How does the status of both élite and supposedly ‘marginal’ social groups change across time and space within the framework of evolving socio-political structures? To what extent can the analysis of funerary evidence offer reliable information on the forms of power and authority emerging in societies where inequality is a pervasive feature? To what extent do alternative social practices and identities, as opposed to élite ones, become archaeologically visible when one explores the less ‘prestigious’ funerary evidence that is often neglected?
The book has its origins in the international workshop “Burial and Social Change in Ancient Italy, 9th-5th century BC: Approaching Social Agents”, organised by the editors of the proposed volume at the British School at Rome in June 2011. The aim of the workshop was to bring together a range of international specialists working on ancient Italy to discuss new approaches to archaeological mortuary evidence, and construct innovative frameworks for investigating social complexity.
Papers by Rafael Scopacasa
For much of the twentieth century, the Roman expansion in Italy was seen as a steady process of unification, not just in a political sense but socio-cultural as well (e.g. Sherwin-White 1973, 159). This view can be traced back to nineteenth-century Germany, and particularly to the work of Theodor Mommsen. His idea that Italian communities almost inevitably converged under Roman leadership was probably influenced by the atmosphere of German national unification in his own day, and the modern expectations of nation building under the guidance of a dominant state, in this case Prussia (Mouritsen 2006).
Yet on a deeper level, this teleological view of Roman encroachment reflects the surviving historical narratives from antiquity, which were the chief sources available to Mommsen. The ancient historical accounts portray the Roman “conquest” of Italy as the first stage in the city’s inevitable rise to world domination. Whilst such narratives offer an invaluable basis for understanding how Rome extended its territory and power, they also pose serious challenges. With the exception of Polybius, most of the surviving texts were written from the mid-first century BC onwards, at least 200 years after the events that they describe. These authors wrote about the mid-Republican past in view of their own political agendas and anxieties as upper-class Romans of the late Republic and Principate (Dench 2005, 152 ff; Kraus and Woodman 1997). Although individuals such as Livy were eager to understand how Roman hegemony had come about, they were mostly unconcerned with social and administrative transformations. They offer vivid accounts of battles and wars, but only faint sketches of the political settlements between Rome and Italian communities.
On the other hand, a growing body of epigraphic, numismatic, and archaeological sources – from survey data to ceramics and architecture – offer a rich evidence base that is contemporaneous with the process of Roman encroachment. This material allows us to explore the social and cultural transformations that Italian communities experienced, ultimately supporting alternative histories of Republican Italy. Yet the fragmentary nature of the archaeological and epigraphic record also makes for very challenging problems of interpretation, as we shall see below.
This chapter discusses the role of Italian communities in Rome’s rise as a hegemonic power between the fifth and early second centuries BC, and how this process transformed Italy as a result. I begin by sketching a narrative of events that mark the extension of Roman territory and power in Italy, from the founding of the Republic (509 BC) to the start of the first Punic war (264 BC) – seeking, whenever possible, to reconstruct the Italian perspective on these events. The second part of the chapter discusses the social and political impact of Roman dominance between the late fourth and early second centuries. I emphasise the current shift towards a new narrative of Roman hegemony in third-century Italy, where colonisation, extensions of citizenship, and alliances are being approached not simply as instruments of Roman oppression, but also as complex and changing phenomena in which Italians as well as Romans played a key role. Whilst colonisation surely helped to consolidate Roman territorial expansion at the expense of Italian communities, the colonies themselves were autonomous communities with permeable borders, which included large numbers of Italians – both locals and migrants (Bradley and Wilson 2006; Coles 2009). Colonies and the extension of citizenship promoted new patterns of integration and mobility across the peninsula through trade, intermarriage, and army service, which affected Rome as well as Italy (Roselaar, ed. 2012). Growing knowledge of such mobility allows us to rethink the link between Roman hegemony and the cultural changes that we see in the material record of Italy in the fourth-second centuries, which is discussed towards the end of this chapter.
Conference/ Session proposals by Rafael Scopacasa
Talks by Rafael Scopacasa
Conference/session proposals by Rafael Scopacasa
The proposed volume harnesses innovative approaches to the exceptionally rich mortuary evidence of first-millennium BC Italy, to investigate the roles and identities of social actors who either struggled for power and social recognition, or were manipulated and exploited by superior authorities in a phase of tumultuous change throughout the Mediterranean. Funerary remains are the most substantial evidence base for the period, and offer a unique opportunity to explore how individuals and communities from different Italian regions represented and re-created themselves in the rites of passage generated by the supreme crisis of death, often leading to significant socio-cultural adjustments for families and wider social segments (Morris 1992; Parker Pearson 1999). Whereas previous scholarship has generally focused on wealthy élite graves (e.g. Fulminante 2003; Silvestrini and Sabbatini 2008; Von Eles 2002), this book considers the broader spectrum represented in the funerary record, including demographic groups that have rarely been the primary subject of research in Italy (e.g. women and children) as well as individuals left at the margins of privileged social networks, such as people denied formal burial or the victims of ritual violence. Identity (Insoll 2007), connectivity/networks (Horden and Purcell 2000; Malkin 2003; 2011), gender (Whitehouse 1998; 2009) agency (Gardner 2004) and personhood (Fowler 2004) are some of the key conceptual lenses through which the contributors to this volume approach the changing notions of power, community and the individual’s role, addressing questions such as: how can the social role of women, children, and non-élite individuals be reconstructed from the way in which these roles are expressed/negotiated through mortuary ritual in increasingly complex social contexts? How does the status of both élite and supposedly ‘marginal’ social groups change across time and space within the framework of evolving socio-political structures? To what extent can the analysis of funerary evidence offer reliable information on the forms of power and authority emerging in societies where inequality is a pervasive feature? To what extent do alternative social practices and identities, as opposed to élite ones, become archaeologically visible when one explores the less ‘prestigious’ funerary evidence that is often neglected?
The book has its origins in the international workshop “Burial and Social Change in Ancient Italy, 9th-5th century BC: Approaching Social Agents”, organised by the editors of the proposed volume at the British School at Rome in June 2011. The aim of the workshop was to bring together a range of international specialists working on ancient Italy to discuss new approaches to archaeological mortuary evidence, and construct innovative frameworks for investigating social complexity.
For much of the twentieth century, the Roman expansion in Italy was seen as a steady process of unification, not just in a political sense but socio-cultural as well (e.g. Sherwin-White 1973, 159). This view can be traced back to nineteenth-century Germany, and particularly to the work of Theodor Mommsen. His idea that Italian communities almost inevitably converged under Roman leadership was probably influenced by the atmosphere of German national unification in his own day, and the modern expectations of nation building under the guidance of a dominant state, in this case Prussia (Mouritsen 2006).
Yet on a deeper level, this teleological view of Roman encroachment reflects the surviving historical narratives from antiquity, which were the chief sources available to Mommsen. The ancient historical accounts portray the Roman “conquest” of Italy as the first stage in the city’s inevitable rise to world domination. Whilst such narratives offer an invaluable basis for understanding how Rome extended its territory and power, they also pose serious challenges. With the exception of Polybius, most of the surviving texts were written from the mid-first century BC onwards, at least 200 years after the events that they describe. These authors wrote about the mid-Republican past in view of their own political agendas and anxieties as upper-class Romans of the late Republic and Principate (Dench 2005, 152 ff; Kraus and Woodman 1997). Although individuals such as Livy were eager to understand how Roman hegemony had come about, they were mostly unconcerned with social and administrative transformations. They offer vivid accounts of battles and wars, but only faint sketches of the political settlements between Rome and Italian communities.
On the other hand, a growing body of epigraphic, numismatic, and archaeological sources – from survey data to ceramics and architecture – offer a rich evidence base that is contemporaneous with the process of Roman encroachment. This material allows us to explore the social and cultural transformations that Italian communities experienced, ultimately supporting alternative histories of Republican Italy. Yet the fragmentary nature of the archaeological and epigraphic record also makes for very challenging problems of interpretation, as we shall see below.
This chapter discusses the role of Italian communities in Rome’s rise as a hegemonic power between the fifth and early second centuries BC, and how this process transformed Italy as a result. I begin by sketching a narrative of events that mark the extension of Roman territory and power in Italy, from the founding of the Republic (509 BC) to the start of the first Punic war (264 BC) – seeking, whenever possible, to reconstruct the Italian perspective on these events. The second part of the chapter discusses the social and political impact of Roman dominance between the late fourth and early second centuries. I emphasise the current shift towards a new narrative of Roman hegemony in third-century Italy, where colonisation, extensions of citizenship, and alliances are being approached not simply as instruments of Roman oppression, but also as complex and changing phenomena in which Italians as well as Romans played a key role. Whilst colonisation surely helped to consolidate Roman territorial expansion at the expense of Italian communities, the colonies themselves were autonomous communities with permeable borders, which included large numbers of Italians – both locals and migrants (Bradley and Wilson 2006; Coles 2009). Colonies and the extension of citizenship promoted new patterns of integration and mobility across the peninsula through trade, intermarriage, and army service, which affected Rome as well as Italy (Roselaar, ed. 2012). Growing knowledge of such mobility allows us to rethink the link between Roman hegemony and the cultural changes that we see in the material record of Italy in the fourth-second centuries, which is discussed towards the end of this chapter.
Section 1 addresses the construction of identity by focusing mainly on the manipulation of age, ethnic and gender categories in society in regions and sites that reached notable power and splendour in first millennium BC Italy. These include Etruria, Latium, Campania and the rich settlement of Verucchio, in Emilia Romagna.
Section 2 offers a counterpoint to Section 1 by focusing on the concepts of ‘periphery’, marginality and the frailty of élite (or sub-élite) power in phases of dramatic socio-political change. Moreover, this Section approaches the idea of identity construction in ‘fringe’ geographical areas that are sometimes overlooked in Anglophone scholarship, such as the Veneto, Samnium, western Emilia and Trentino–South Tyrol. With its overall emphasis on scholarly multivocality, this volume is one of the first ever to strongly advocate for a study of social exclusion and extreme social marginality in late prehistoric and proto-historic Italy.