Over the course of the first millennium bce the peoples of the Italian peninsula were transformed from scattered, middle-range, prehistoric communities of farmers and herders into literate, urban societies with structured political, judicial, religious and economic institutions. In the process they experienced settler colonialism, acculturation, language loss, ethnogenesis and ethnogenocide, wars, demographic growth and eventual subjugation by one of their own, Rome. This volume's daunting task is to inform readers on these transformations over a thousand or so action-packed years.
The volume covers this period of Italian history in some 850 pages, organised into 50 chapters including the introduction (though under-illustrated). The authors are an international group of 53 scholars. Many are historians, a few are linguists and literary scholars, and a few are archaeologists. Although the volume is in (excellent) English, more than half of the authors are from Italian institutions, affording an opportunity for anglophone readers to engage with Italian scholarship. The authors are almost exclusively senior academics.
Following an introduction by the editor Maiuro, the book is organised into three sections: Part 1: ‘Structures: Background and Actors’; Part 2: ‘Histories’; and Part 3: ‘Connections, Exchanges, Mediators’. Before I get to these sections, a few words on the intended audience for this book as presented in the introduction will be appropriate, as this aspect is critical for setting the tone of the volume.
From its origins in Old English (handboc), the reader is present in the word ‘handbook’, holding in their hands this container of information for them. It follows, then, that the identity of the intended audience – who is to be informed? – matters. As a prehistoric archaeologist who has researched the Italian Bronze Age leading up to the period when this book begins, I am naturally interested in the subsequent ‘crucial’ (as Maiuro aptly describes it) millennium. But from the first sentence, I realise this book is not meant for me. Here it is, from the introduction: ‘Scene number one: during his censorship, Cato delivers an oration – no longer extant, but known with certainty to Livy (39.43.5: Valerius Antias, FRHist F.55 has a much more edulcorated version of the episode, on which almost all later authors rely, though it did not derive from Cato: see Briscoe 2007, 358–362 for a discussion) – in which he excoriates his political enemy and the brother of his rival for the position of censor, L. Quinctius Flamininus’ (p. 3). In what follows, we learn that Cato's criticism of Flamininus centres on his wanton attack on a Gaul of the Boii tribe while on a visit to the Po Plain in 184 bce. Why was this scene chosen to start the book? Maiuro explains: ‘The episode of the Boiian princeps is a powerful reminder of the fact that the reality for Italic peoples could still be radically different, even though Italy had grown, the indigenous peoples had gained Cato's respect, and they had been named by Polybius as the key factor in Rome's military success (2.24)’ (pp. 4–5). This is a reminder for Romans and now Romanists, I suppose, since those of us who study Italy's indigenous peoples do not seek Cato's approval or Polybius’ commendation (for Rome's own conquest of them). One must almost admire how a book on pre-Roman Italy could begin in so thoroughly Romanocentric a manner. Here the Italic experience is defined by its difference from normative Romanness; Maiuro applies the Latin term ‘princeps’ to a Boiian leader and assumes that the reader knows that the Boii, although a Gallic tribe, lived inside what we think of as Italy. If the opening passage was not already too technical for a hapless prehistorian, Maiuro calls out the intended readers by name a little later (p. 28): ‘I would be gratified if this book stimulates some interest in this remote period among historians of later periods’.
To tell this fascinating story that covers Italy's transition from prehistory to the classical world, one must harness diverse types of evidence and approaches, and bridge disciplinary boundaries. Of course, there is something inevitably teleological about the word ‘pre-Roman’, and we can see this in many of the chapters, as the trends lead where we know they will lead. But it is not unreasonable to expect that the peoples, structures and developments of the Italian peninsula in the earliest centuries under study will be examined on their own terms, and that archaeology will necessarily play a central role in this endeavour. While some chapters achieve this, in the introduction itself the entire thousand-year history is refracted through a Roman lens.
On the same page Maiuro writes, ‘Second, this volume seeks to provide the reader with the most important research methods used by scholars specializing in this time period, as well as the results of the most recent research on these topics’. This goal is not achieved, as the reader is not provided with the most important methods for approaching this period. There is almost no discussion of the archaeological sciences, which are increasingly crucial to the study of pre-Roman Italy; bioarchaeology, aDNA, stable isotope analysis, zooarchaeology, archaeobotany, soil micromorphology, metals characterisation: all are virtually absent from the volume, as are network analysis and ceramic and other artefact characterisation, with the welcome exception of R. Roth's chapter.
But despite the volume's drawbacks, there is much to commend it. After the introduction, the handbook settles into a rhythm, with some terrific standalone chapters. The events occurring late in the millennium receive the most attention. Some of Part 1's highlights: S. Bourdin's chapter offers a compact and useful summary of urbanisation in Italy. R. Wallace's chapter on alphabets and writing is a clear conspectus on the topic and a nuanced discussion of the social value of literacy and what was at stake in adopting writing. E. Lo Cascio's discussion of demography and W.V. Harris's chapter on the history of the concept of Italy as a unit are informative, and C. Marconi provides an efficient overview of the Greeks and colonisation. O. de Cazanove and E. Dupraz's chapter on religions will be of little help to non-specialist readers because they seem to be writing for a small group of experts. In the opening paragraph (p. 94) they inform us that there is no way to summarise satisfactorily Italic religions, so they opt instead for two narrow case studies, one on the Iguvine Tablets and the other on Oscan cult sites. Without a basic description of Italic religion neither case study is accessible to non-specialists. Also in Part 1, individual chapters on the named peoples of Italy vary widely in level of detail and in utility: A. La Regina's piece on the Samnites is over 40 pages and rich in detail and with 11 pages of references; by contrast, L. Capuis’ on the Veneti, a group of no less historical importance than the Samnites, is just 11 pages, with only half a page of references.
Part 2, ‘Histories’, consists of four chapters that each take a chronological slice of the period under study. Starting with the earliest centuries covered by the book, A.M. Bietti Sestieri and C. Giardino outline the cultural facies of the FBA and EIA throughout the peninsula. C. Smith's succinct and incisive treatment of what he terms ‘the long sixth century’ is a model for how to frame the entire volume, with examinations of categories of evidence, social history, themes and a survey of historical transformations. The subsequent chapters in this section are similarly informative. This section would have been better positioned first, because the historical background could inform the rest of the book.
Part 3 is a hodgepodge, with some good and some less good chapters. E. Benelli's chapter on family structure is perceptive, as is P. Poccetti's long piece on Sabellian languages. M. Harari's chapter on private spaces presents the evolution of domestic structures in the peninsula and is careful to distinguish between homegrown changes and those influenced by Greek models. The analysis is helpful, and this will be of value in classes. S.J. Schwarz's chapter on Hercules in Italy manages to be both succinct and detailed, with an extensive bibliography.
With about 50 chapters to organise, some odd placements are bound to occur. Perplexingly, S. De Vido's chapter on the conceptualisation of Italy in relation to its islands is separated from its (stronger) counterpart, Harris's chapter on Italy and Italies, by 28 chapters. I. Edlund-Berry's straightforward and informative presentation of sacred spaces in Italy could aid non-specialist readers in the parsing of Cazanove and Dupraz's case study on Oscan cult sites, if her chapter were not positioned 500 pages after it. One chapter, G. Reger's on the Greek island of Delos, gives only a brief nod to Italians on the island and is otherwise out of place in this volume (while A. Naso similarly focuses on Italic elements in Greek sanctuaries, he is able to make a better case for relevance).
It is easy to find fault with an ambitious volume such as this one, and I have done so, but I end with a sense of appreciation that it was even attempted. It starts with 1000 bce, a nice round year, which could just as easily be 1015 or 945 bce for all we know, and ends with a year, 49 bce, when historians can trace the events in months and even days. The latter year is late in the Roman Republic when Julius Caesar crosses the Rubicon and begins a civil war with his rival Pompey. In contrast, for Italy in 1000 bce we have no names of individuals and no singular events we can pinpoint. This exponential growth in information over time from the introduction of writing makes any synopsis of the period or comparisons across it very difficult. Historical explanations shift towards the proximate causes of people and events and away from the longer-term factors such as environment and resources. But if we read each chapter on its own terms, after 50 chapters we have gained much knowledge. The authors, all experts in their subject, offer valuable information regardless of the reader. That makes this a successful handbook.
