The Ager Romanus (literally, "the field of Rome"') is the geographical rural area (part plains, part hilly) that surrounds the city of Rome. Politically and historically, it has represented the area of influence of Rome's municipal government. It is limited to the south by the Monti Prenestini range, Alban Hills and Pontine Marshes; to the west by the Tyrrhenian Sea; to the north by the hills surrounding Lake Bracciano and to the east by the Monti Tiburtini range. [1]
The Rome of Romulus and his immediate successors possessed a very restricted territory, as did neighbouring Latin cities such as Praeneste. Such territories were marked by boundary stones, or cippi, used to define and limit the legitimate area of influence of cities, and the boundaries of private landholdings. According to tradition, Rome rapidly outgrew the ager established by its founder, and rather than accept its confinement, Tullus Hostilius razed the Latin city of Alba Longa ca. 635 BC, and incorporated its former territories within the ager Romanus.
With the proclamation of the Roman Republic in 509 BC, all the territory occupied by Romans in "Latium vetus" came to be proclaimed ager publicus, equivalent to state lands today, which were held by the state and could be granted to private citizens. [2] The Roman municipal authorities of this era were the consuls. In effect, Rome was a gigantic city-territory continuously expanding across Europe. [3]
Octavian Augustus founded the office of praefectus urbi and other offices which divided the administration of the city of Rome from that of the Roman Empire. Thus was solved the problem of delimiting the territory of the municipium of Rome from the territory of the rest of the empire – besides the Regio I Latii et Campaniae administered by a specific governor, the confines of the municipal authority of Rome came to be fixed at the "centesimum lapidem" (i.e. one hundred miles) on each of the via consularis converging on Rome. So, de iure, the Roman municipal authority controlled the whole of Lazio and part of Tuscany from Talamone to Terracina and also parts of Abruzzo and Umbria.
The same territorial division was confirmed by the re-subdivision of the provinces by Diocletian.
After the fall of the empire, the praefectus urbi continued to be elected and did not come to be totally deprived of their power even by the advancing papal power which effectively became the municipal government of Rome.
The Ager Romanus, as a political zone subject to the municipium of Rome, theoretically continued to extend ad centesimum lapidem, but in practice many of its regions ended up in Lombard hands, with still others managed by the religious authorities or the pope, who were beginning to manage their territories by means of patrimonia and domuscultae .
The motu proprio of 6 July 1817 by Pope Pius VII established the boundaries of the municipium of Rome, assigning to the capital its present communal territory as well as the present communes of Fiumicino, Pomezia and Ardea. The confines of the Comunità di Roma were thus finally defined and no longer nebulous, and these limits ended at the constitution of the commune of Pomezia (also including present-day Ardea) following its lasting foundation during the "bonifica fascista" and – in the 1990s – of Fiumicino.
The Latins were originally an Italic tribe in ancient central Italy from Latium. As Roman power and colonization spread Helleno-Latin culture during the Roman Republic, Latins culturally "Romanized" or "Latinized" the rest of Italy, and the word Latin ceased to mean a particular people or ethnicity, acquiring a more legal and cultural sense. As the Roman Empire spread to include Spain, Portugal, France, and Romania, these joined Italy and Greece in becoming "Latin" and remain so to the present day. In the 15th and 16th centuries, Portugal, Spain and France began to build world empires in the Americas, Africa and the East Indies. By the mid-19th century, the former American colonies of these Latin European nations became known as Latin America.
The Aventine Hill is one of the Seven Hills on which ancient Rome was built. It belongs to Ripa, the modern twelfth rione, or ward, of Rome.
Lavinium was a port city of Latium, 6 km (3.7 mi) to the south of Rome, midway between the Tiber river at Ostia and Antium. The coastline then, as now, was a long strip of beach. Lavinium was on a hill at the southernmost edge of the Silva Laurentina, a dense laurel forest, and the northernmost edge of the Pontine Marshes, a vast malarial tract of wetlands. The basis for the port, the only one between Ostia and Antium, was evidently the mouth of the Numicus river.
The Latin League was an ancient confederation of about 30 villages and tribes in the region of Latium near the ancient city of Rome, organized for mutual defense. The term "Latin League" is one coined by modern historians with no precise Latin equivalent.
Tusculum is a ruined Roman city in the Alban Hills, in the Latium region of Italy. Tusculum was most famous in Roman times for the many great and luxurious patrician country villas sited close to the city, yet a comfortable distance from Rome.
Italia, also referred to as Roman Italy, was the homeland of the ancient Romans. According to Roman mythology, Italy was the ancestral home promised by Jupiter to Aeneas of Troy and his descendants, Romulus and Remus, who were the founders of Rome. Aside from the legendary accounts, Rome was an Italic city-state that changed its form of government from Kingdom to Republic and then grew within the context of a peninsula dominated by the Gauls, Ligures, Veneti, Camunni and Histri in the North, the Etruscans, Latins, Falisci, Picentes and Umbri tribes in the Centre, and the Iapygian tribes, the Oscan tribes and Greek colonies in the South.
Latin rights were a set of legal rights that were originally granted to the Latins under Roman law in their original territory and therefore in their colonies. "Latinitas" was commonly used by Roman jurists to denote this status. With the Roman expansion in Italy, many settlements and coloniae outside of Latium had Latin rights.
Quintus Fabius Vibulanus, son of Marcus Fabius Vibulanus, was consul of the Roman Republic and one of the second set of decemviri.
Fregellae was an ancient town of Latium adiectum, situated on the Via Latina between Aquinum and Frusino, in central Italy, near the left branch of the Liris.
Latium adiectum or Latium Novum was a region of Roman Italy between Monte Circeo and the river Garigliano, south of and immediately adjacent to Old Latium, hence its name of attached Latium.
Latium is the region of central western Italy in which the city of Rome was founded and grew to be the capital city of the Roman Empire.
The praefectus urbanus, also called praefectus urbi or urban prefect in English, was prefect of the city of Rome, and later also of Constantinople. The office originated under the Roman kings, continued during the Republic and Empire, and held high importance in late Antiquity. The office survived the collapse of the Western Roman Empire, and the last urban prefect of Rome, named Iohannes, is attested in 599. In the East, in Constantinople, the office survived until the 13th century.
A Roman colonia was originally a Roman outpost established in conquered territory to secure it. Eventually, however, the term came to denote the highest status of a Roman city. It is also the origin of the modern term colony.
Valle Latina is an Italian geographical and historical region that extends from the south of Rome to Cassino, corresponding to the eastern area of ancient Roman Latium.
Sinuessa was a city of Latium, in the more extended sense of the name, situated on the Tyrrhenian Sea, about 10 km north of the mouth of the Volturno River. It was on the line of the Via Appia, and was the last place where that great highroad touched on the sea-coast. The ruins of the city are located in the modern-day municipality of Sessa Aurunca ,The hamlet is, as the crow flies, 12.24 Km from the Municipality of Sessa Aurunca and 41.43 Km from the Province of Caserta. It is 26.71 km from the regional capital (Naples/Napoli) Campania, Italy.
The Latins, sometimes known as the Latials or Latians, were an Italic tribe which included the early inhabitants of the city of Rome. From about 1000 BC, the Latins inhabited the small region known to the Romans as Old Latium, that is, the area between the river Tiber and the promontory of Mount Circeo 100 km (62 mi) southeast of Rome. Following the Roman expansion, the Latins spread into the Latium adiectum, inhabited by Osco-Umbrian peoples.
The gens Anicia was a plebeian family at ancient Rome, mentioned first towards the end of the fourth century BC. The first of the Anicii to achieve prominence under the Republic was Lucius Anicius Gallus, who conducted the war against the Illyrians during the Third Macedonian War, in 168 BC.
Old Latium is a region of the Italian peninsula bounded to the north by the river Tiber, to the east by the central Apennine mountains, to the west by the Mediterranean Sea and to the south by Monte Circeo. It was the territory of the Latins, an Italic tribe which included the early inhabitants of the city of Rome. Later it was also settled by various Italic tribes such as the Rutulians, Volscians, Aequi, and Hernici. The region was referred to as "old" to distinguish it from the expanded region, Latium, that included the region to the south of Old Latium, between Monte Circeo and the river Garigliano – the so-called Latium adiectum. It corresponded to the central part of the modern administrative region of Lazio, Italy, and it covered an area measuring of roughly 50 Roman miles. It was calculated by Mommsen that the region's area was about 1860 square kilometres.
Titus Quinctius Capitolinus Barbatus was a Roman statesman and general who served as consul six times. Titus Quinctius was a member of the gens Quinctia, one of the oldest patrician families in Rome.
The gens Turcia was an obscure plebeian family at ancient Rome. Few members of this gens appear in history, but a number are known from inscriptions, which indicate that the Turcii first came to prominence in the time of Augustus. After a period of relative unimportance, they repeatedly attained the highest offices of the Roman state from the third to the fifth century, holding several consulships.