Urban Identities in Late Roman Italy

In the period from the fourth to the sixth centuries the most interesting process is twofold: while a global Italic identity or a ‘provincial identity’ did not develop even after the provincialization of Italy, civic and local identity, often evoked in opposition to a global one, also weakened slowly. From the second half of the third century onwards, the cities of Italy Annonaria adapted to the new fiscal and military needs consolidated by Diocletian and Constantine. The cities of Italia Suburbicaria remained in the orbit of powerful senatorial patrons and great landowners in southern Italy. Milan and Rome were the two centres of this bipolarity. During the fourth century, ‘clientelar urban identity’ was strong. This traditional relationship aroused deep emotions and inspired intense collective participation. The participation of citizens, their internal solidarity, and their affection for their homeland appear hard to detect in the fifth an sixth centuries. The survey on civic identity in Italy shows a ‘negative’ process of loss of identity: both at the top level of exhausted ecumenical imperialism and at the local level of belonging to ‘Romanitas’.