BABesch 81 (2006, 91-133. doi: 10.2143/BAB.81.0.2014425) The Birth of a Roman Southern Italy: a Case Study Ancient written sources and archaeological evidence on the early Roman phase in the Salento district, southern Italy (3rd-1st century BC) Douwe G. Yntema Abstract This paper focuses on southeast Italy in the 2nd century BC. This was the crucial period in which the founda- tions of Roman Italy were laid. The image of post-Hannibalic southern Italy was mainly constructed on the basis of ancient written sources. Three fundamental questions are discussed. The first question concerns the nature of both the archaeological evidence and the ancient written sources on this area. The second question explores the reliability of the pictures each of these seems to present. The third question concerns the relation- ship between these pictures. Can they be integrated in order to present a new and fairly coherent narrative? 1. INTRODUCTION1 have entailed an integration process of a native- Italic society, the 1995 paper explored the useful- This paper deals with a number of aspects of the ness of the Romanization concept that Martin 170-180 year period following the Roman incor- Millett applied to Britain (dialogue between Ro- poration or conquest of the district of Salento, man and ‘native’ culture) in the regional context of Italy, in the second quarter of the 3rd century BC. Salento (cf. Millett 1990). It emerged that although The Salento district is situated in southern Italy, many things changed in the first two centuries where it forms the heel of the Italian boot (fig. 1). after the Roman triumph over the native groups According to the ancient Greek author Strabo, in Salento, very few could be directly linked to Brentesion (Brindisi) and Taras (Taranto) were the only more or less decent towns there in the early Imperial age, while the same district reportedly had quite a number of important settlements (poleis) in pre-Roman times (Strabo, Geography 6.3.5). However, my concern is not with Taranto, a town on the western fringes of Salento inhab- ited by people who called themselves Greeks. Instead, this paper discusses the district inhabited at the time of the Roman conquest by a non- Greek, ‘native’ population often referred to as the ‘Messapians’. The present paper complements an article on a similar subject (Romanization) published a few years ago (Yntema 1995a). In that article I used the black-box system, comparing the archaeological evidence for various aspects of the period pre- ceding the Roman occupation with evidence for the same aspects in the period following Roman intervention. Continuity and change between the two periods were highlighted and explanations offered when the patterns observed in the data seemed to suggest them. Since the de facto incor- Fig. 1. Salento and surrounding area: poration of Salento into the Roman state must sites mentioned in the text. 91 the dialogue between the native societies of evidence and the ancient written sources. What Salento and the Roman world of the 3rd and 2nd exactly are they and what kind of picture do they centuries BC. The Salento groups were in fact present? The second question involves interpre- engaged in a much broader ‘cultural conversa- tation. Are the pictures they present legible and tion’ involving native-Italic speakers with various sufficiently reliable for the period under discussion roots (Messapians, Oscans, Campanians, Latins, or do they evoke a hazy, somewhat panoramic Romans etc.) and different types of Greeks (e.g. Ita- landscape, fusing a range of clichés and/or cen- liote, Siciliote, Aegean and Alexandrinian Greeks). turies into a single, blurred and badly distorted I concluded that most of the changes affecting image? The third question concerns the relation- Salento in the first two centuries after the Roman ship between the archaeological evidence and the conquest were certainly not the result of Romani- ancient written sources on Salento. Are the pic- zation, irrespective of how we define the term. tures constructed on the strength of each type of The vast majority would probably have occurred source more or less compatible with one another? - though perhaps not with the same intensity or at Can they be integrated to present a fairly coher- the same pace - even if the Romans had decided ent narrative about early Roman Salento, or are not to intervene and had not succeeded in con- they contradictory, and do we need to explain quering the Salento district. Material, economic, why they differ so much? socio-political and religious features of early The period selected covers the later 3rd, the 2nd Roman Salento actually appear to have derived and the early years of the 1st centuries BC. This is from a wide range of Italic and eastern Mediter- the time between the Roman conquest of the ranean cultures. The dialogue model, with its only Salento district (267/266 BC) and its de iure incor- slightly veiled bipolarity (native versus Roman poration into the Roman state as a result of the culture), appears too simple and too antithetic for Social War in 90/89 BC. These two events have Salento and perhaps in general. Becoming Roman not been chosen as the chronological boundaries in Salento implied much more than an intense for this paper because of their undoubted mile- dialogue between two cultures. The concept leaves stone status in Salento history. Instead, the delim- insufficient room for the substantial regional itations are fairly arbitrary. Events like these are diversities of southeastern Italy and the probably unlikely to have such strongly ‘delimiting’ prop- even greater regional diversities of the eastern erties. When the people of Salento technically Mediterranean. Moreover, contacts with a wide became Romans in 90/89 BC, they did not sud- range of other cultural groups confronted the denly start to speak Latin or to think Roman. The inhabitants of Salento with various possibilities: main reason for selecting this particular period is they could accept, ignore or reject features of the the existence of both a substantial body of archae- cultures with which they came into contact (see ological evidence and a range of written sources also Curti et al. 1996; Terrenato 1998). These cul- concerning those years in the Salento peninsula. tures included the Romans, the neighbouring The preceding era (4th/early 3rd century BC) is native groups of the Lucanians and Peucetians, rich in archaeological evidence, but poor in ancient the neighbouring Greeks from Taranto, Epirus written sources, while evidence of both types is and Corfu, and the distant Ephesians, Rhodians scarce for the late Republican and early Imperial or Alexandrinians who may have visited Salento periods. However, we should also concede that ports. there is little ancient written evidence from about The basic aim of the present paper is to con- the mid-2nd century BC onward. tribute to our understanding of a southern Italian The main focus, therefore, will be on the first district (Salento) during the first 170 to 180 years hundred years of indirect Roman rule. The sources of Roman rule. Since I have previously discussed on early Roman Salento discussed here may offer (Yntema 1993a, 195-213; Yntema 1995a) several valuable information about this period of crucial aspects emerging from data recovered by archae- change in the region’s history - the period in ological methods such as excavations and field which Salento became integrated into the Medi- surveys, the subject of this paper is to evaluate terranean world of Hellenistic-Roman times. In the archaeological evidence and data from writ- the following section I briefly outline the events ten sources about the post-conquest period in the surrounding the Roman actions that made up the light of one another. Both types of sources are dis- conquest/occupation of Salento in the second cussed. The present paper hopes to suggest quarter of the 3rd century BC. I then discuss the answers to three fundamental questions. The first ancient written sources (section 3), and briefly concerns the nature of both the archaeological examine the archaeological data (section 4). 92 Section 5 presents the narrative that can be con- mans. In 272 BC Taranto fell into Roman hands. structed on the strength of evidence from the pre- Soon after the capture of the Greek town, the sent research. In the concluding section, I suggest native Salento districts were conquered by the answers to the three fundamental questions for- Romans. This happened in the years 267-266 BC, mulated above. This section in effect summarizes making Salento the last district in peninsular Italy sections 3 and 4, which discuss the nature and to be incorporated into the expanding Roman interpretation of both the archaeological evidence state. and ancient written sources, and seeks to make The Fasti Triumphales Capitolini commemorate explicit the relationship between both types of the Roman successes in Salento by mentioning sources as this emerges from the narrative in sec- two triumphs for the years 267/266 BC. They tion 5. record the names of the Roman commanders who were responsible for these glorious deeds and 2. THE ROMAN CONQUEST OF SALENTO who were accordingly permitted to celebrate a tri- umph: consuls M. Attilius Regulus and L. Iulius Salento is Italy’s gateway to the eastern Medi- Libo on 25 January of the Roman year 486 a.U.c. terranean. Separated from the Balkans by the ‘de Sallentineis’, and consuls N. Fabius Pictor and merely 70-km wide Strait of Otranto, it is an D. Iunius Pera on 7 February of the year 487 a.U.c. almost mandatory stopping place for those going ‘de Sallentineis Messapeisque’. Livy offers no account to or coming from Greece.