BaBesch 70 (1995) Romanisation in the Brindisino, southern Italy: a preliminary report Douwe Yntema I. INTRODUCTION Romanisation is a highly complicated matter in southern Italy. Here, there was no culture dialogue Romanisation is a widely and often indiscrimi- involving two parties only. In the period preceding nately used term. The process expressed by the the Roman incorporation (4th century B.C.) this word involves at least two parties: one of these is area was inhabited by several different groups: rel- the Roman world and the other party or parties is ative latecomers were the Greek-speaking people or are one or more non-Roman societies. These who had emigrated from present-day Greece and are the basic ingredients which are present in each the west coast of Asia Minor to Italy in the 8th, 7th definition, be it explicit or implicit, of that term. and 6th centuries; they lived mainly in the coastal Many scholars have given their views on what strip on the Gulf of Taranto. Other (‘native') they think it should mean. Perhaps the most satis- groups had lived in southern Italy since the Bronze factory definition was formulated by Martin Age. Some groups in present-day Calabria and Milett. In his view, Romanisation is not just Campania displayed initially close links with the another word to indicate Roman influence: ‘it is urnfield cultures of Central Italy. Comparable a process of dialectical change rather than the groups, living mainly in present-day Apulia and influence of one … culture upon others' (Millett Basilicata and having closely similar material cul- 1990). tures, buried the corpses of their dead. They are The passage above indicates that the term is often sometimes indicated as the Fossakulturen (e.g., used in a different sense in order to indicate Müller-Karpe 1959). While the Basilicata tribes changes – mostly in the material culture – in non- spoke Osco-Sabellic tongues in protohistoric times, Roman societies generated by the interaction the language of the Apulian tribes was Messapic between these societies and the Roman world. which has affinities with Illyrian (De Simone Such phenomena can sometimes be considered to 1971). be culture adaptations as a result of a Romanisation As late as 300 B.C. the several native populations process, but may also be due to other factors. This differed vastly in character. The extremes are rep- more ‘materialistic' definition ignores the fact that resented by some Campanian groups and the north- Romanisation is basically a dialogue between two Apulian tribes. The people of Capua and Pompeii or more cultures, and not the (material) results of it were town dwellers, many of whom had their roots in the originally non-Roman party. There are, how- in the Campanian urnfield cultures. North-Apulian ever, more problems with this narrower definition. settlements such as Arpi and Canusium (now It should, for instance, be realized that not every Canosa) still had a highly dispersed character; their change that can be observed in a non-Roman soci- inhabitants derived mostly from the Daunians, ety coming into contact with the Roman world dominated by fairly primitive tribal élites until well should necessarily be considered as the result of a into the 4th century B.C. The loose tribal confed- Romanisation process. Societies tend to be subject eracies of the Lucani (mainly in present-day to endogenous change. When a ‘native' culture Basilicata) and the Brettii (in Calabria), the comes into contact with the Roman state, endoge- Peucetii of the Bari area and the Calabri and nous changes may well be mistaken for products of Sallentini of southern Apulia represented various Romanisation. Finally, it should be realized that organisational levels between these two extremes. there is yet another complication. Culture contact By the late 4th century B.C., the Greeks of South with the Roman state and its dependencies some- Italy lived in a series of politically more or less times acted as a catalytic agent in basically endoge- independent city states. Each of them was linked to nous processes of change in originally non-Roman a native hinterland with which close ties had societies. Such processual accelerations do not look existed since the very birth of these Greek settle- like Romanisation in the ‘materialistic' definition ments in the Iron Age. The Greek poleis of Italy of the term, but are certainly part of the process of were important elements in mainly native, Italic dialectical change between Roman and non-Roman networks (Yntema 1993C). However, they were no culture. less a part of the Greek trade diaspora that spanned 153 large stretches of the Mediterranean coast and that This observation comes as no surprise. The was sometimes closely linked to other Brindisino is the northern part of the Salento penin- Mediterranean systems, such as the Phoenician, the sula. This originally non-Greek and non-Roman Etruscan, and the Cartaginian networks. From district is some 600-700 km from Rome if one trav- about 300 B.C. the Greek towns of South Italy els overland; the distance of a voyage by sea is began to be a part of the increasingly multicultural much longer: it is roughly 1100-1200 km, because, Hellenistic world. As a result of these develop- coming from Rome, one has to pass the Strait of ments, native territories of South Italy became Messina, Cape Lacinia (near Croton) and Cape peripherical districts of the Hellenistic world, not Leuca (the southern tip of Apulia) (Figs. 1-2). only geographically, but also in political, social, Salento was inhabited by one or more native tribes economic and cultural respects. South Italy, there- which the Greeks usually called Messapioi before fore, was already a very rich cultural blend before the late 4th century B.C. and which were probably much of this area came into contact with the known as Kalabroi (Brindisi area) and Sal(l)entinoi Roman world. (Lecce district) in the early Hellenistic period. Before the first Roman armies arrived in Salento, This paper deals with the Romanisation in the the district was too far from Rome and its spheres Brindisi area. Here, the term is applied to the inte- of political and economic influence and interest to gration process which followed the political incor- maintain regular and intensive contacts with the poration of a formerly non-Roman society into the town. Roman state (see also Guzzo 1991). An ample Salento controls the relatively narrow entrance to series of such regional – usually interrelated – the Adriatic Sea, known now as the Strait of social, economic and cultural transformations Otranto. It is relatively close to northwestern resulted in the synthesis which we consider to be Greece and the island of Corfu. Therefore, it con- the Roman culture of the Imperial period: cultures, stituted a more or less obligatory point of call for already cultural compounds of considerable com- seafaring between the southern Balkan and Magna plexity before they came into close contact with Graecia. The district, moreover, bordered on the the Roman world, reacted, as it were, with a chora of the Greek polis of Taranto. It was, there- Roman culture (which was also an amalgam) and fore, on the periphery of the Greek world. Because produced a vastly different culture, also labelled of the favourable geographical position of the area, ‘Roman'. The Romanisation of the Brindisi area its native inhabitants were in frequent and regular (Italian: il Brindisino) was one of the processes contact with Greeks from the 8th century B.C. that contributed to the formation of the Roman cul- onward (Yntema 1982). Consequently, the natives ture of the Imperial period: the cosmopolitan soci- of Salento had sometimes focused on the Greek ety that brought the Persian god Mithras to the world, which was attractive because of the latter's Hadrian's Wall and soldiers from the originally considerable know-how of Mediterranean Germanic civitas Batavorum to the brim of the exchange networks. This happened especially after Sahara desert. When the Romanisation of the the colonial-Greek states had come into being in its Brindisi district started in c. 270/260 B.C., Roman vicinity: Taranto, founded towards the end of the culture, therefore, differed very considerably from 8th century according to the ancient sources what it would become in the course of the follow- (Bérard 1957), emerged as a recognizable, prosper- ing three centuries, during which Rome conquered ous state in the last third of 7th century B.C.; the the Mediterranean area and north-western Europe: same applies to Corcyra. Greek settlements on the in the early 3rd century B.C. Rome still was a Epirote and south-Illyrian coast, such as, for central-Italic state with central-Italic cultural tradi- instance, Apollonia and Epidamnus are likely to tions. have gradually changed from trading posts into city states at a somewhat later date. In or even before The Brindisi district was an originally native area the 6th century B.C. they became ports of trade that became incorporated into the Roman world between the tribal native networks and the large rather suddenly. No close contacts between the Mediterranean exchange networks so closely Brindisino and the Roman state can be shown to linked to the Greek and Phoenician trade diasporas. have existed before the Roman conquest of the These regular contacts between individuals and area. Moreover, cultural elements stemming from groups belonging to at least two different cultures areas which by the early 3rd century B.C. were resulted in intricate acculturation and integration under direct or indirect Roman political control are processes. Greeks, especially those living in the conspicuous by their absence in the district under relatively new states close to native areas, were discussion.