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Central Italy and the Emergence of Rome with Dr Francesca Fulminante · The Partial Historians

• Dr Rad 0:15 Welcome to the Partial Historians. Dr G 0:19 We explore all the details of ancient Rome Dr Rad 0:23 Everything from political scandals, the love affairs, the battles waged and when citizens turn against each other, I'm Dr Rad Dr G 0:33 And I'm Dr G. We consider Rome as the Romans saw it, by reading different authors from the ancient past and comparing their stories. Dr Rad 0:44 Join us as we trace the journey of Rome from the founding of the city. Dr G 0:57 Hello and welcome to a brand new episode of the Partial Historians. I am one of your hosts, Dr G Dr Rad 1:05 and I am Dr Rad, Dr G 1:07 and we are very excited to welcome Dr Francesca Fulminante to the show. Hello! Dr Fulminante 1:14 Hello, thank you. I'm very happy to be here. Thank you for the invitation. Dr G 1:18 We're very excited to chat to you. So for listeners who want a little bit of background information, Dr Fulminante is a senior research fellow in the Department of Anthropology and archeology at the University of Bristol and an associate professor at University Roma Tre and also teaches in continuing education at Oxford and Cambridge universities. Her research involves the investigation of complex societies in Rome and the surrounding regions, looking at things like social stratification, settlement organization and craft community practices. And we are really thrilled to be having a chat with Dr Fulminante today because of her work that is associated with these early periods of what becomes Rome. And this is really where we in the podcast have been situated for a long period of time. So I think delving into this from a new perspective is going to be really fun. So one of the key publications is "The Urbanization of Rome and Latin Vetus from the Bronze Age to the Archaic Era", which came out in 2014 and we're going to be talking a little bit about some of the ideas that come up in Dr Fulminante's latest book, "The Rise of Early Rome: Transportation Networks and Domination in Central Italy 1050 to 500 BCE", which came out in 2023 with Cambridge University Press. So I'm super excited for this. I'm like, this is the period of Rome where we're like, what is even happening? What is going on? And this is the kind of work which I think is really going to shed new light on what we can say about this period. So when we're thinking, just to get us sort of in the headspace, I'm wondering, Francesca, if you can help us with what does it really mean when we talk about things like the Bronze Age and the Archaic Period in this context? Because I think for listeners, these things can kind of seem a little bit murky, even though they might be quite defined. So what would you say about this? Dr Fulminante 3:25 Now, certainly that's a bit of technical terms and jargon for the for the archeologists, but the period between the Bronze Age and the Archaic period is a long period starting from 2300 BC, which is the beginning of the Bronze Age, to 500 BC, which is the end of the Archaic period. And as you said, it's an important period, because it is when a lot of important city in western Europe were born, and with Western Europe mainly, I mean Crete, Greece, Italy and Spain. For Northern Europe is a bit different because the process is a bit later. So between the Bronze Age and the Archaic period, we have this process where in the early Bronze Age, some permanent settlements are formed, especially on top of hilltops, because are more defendable and people are a bit more safe. And then there is this tendency for settlement to go in higher places then the villages of the Bronze Age sometime develop into large settlement of the Iron Age, and this is between 1800 BC, or another process happened like in southern Etruria, especially when a lot of small village are. Abandoned, and the people converge on this larger plateau, the large, broad urban settlement they later will become the city of the Archaic period. And as I said, some of the city of the Archaic period are still long lasting until now, like Rome, Bologna, or which are probably more known in Italy, or also some lesser known cities, like Cerveteri or Palestrina that are also in Lazio and Etruria. So it's really a very intriguing time, because we have these, really the summit of urbanization, the beginning of lives, as we know today, because in the Bronze Age there were only villages. So people will still live in huts and maybe add a little garden around the house from which they could get their sustainment. Then in this is still the case in the produr Urban pier, but as I said, they already lived in the big big settlement that will be later cities, a very important time. Is the middle of the eighth century before Christ, because that is the time when we are the development of fortification of communal cult places. Is the beginning of the forum in Rome. So even if all these structures are still imperishable material. So, for example, the fortification wall is in Earth an earthwork. The cult place is still an hut. The farm is just an open space. So there isn't any building, but there is already the political place, the places where political action happens. So there is probably already a community of citizens. So archeology normally thinks that the middle of the eighth century BC is when really cities start as a community. Then in the Archaic period, which is when we go down to the fifth century, all of these perishable buildings are made in stone. So we have the beginning of houses with stone foundation. We have the big Capitoline temple on the Capitoline Hill the other temple in Rome, the big sewage collector, the Cloaca Maxima. So really, city starts to look up a little bit more like we know a city today. So that's why so exciting, because we have a complete transformation from a little village of little arts and perishable material to the proper city that we we know of today. That's what I find so exciting, to be able to study such a moment of important transformations. Dr Rad 7:50 It's actually not a period I suppose most people know much about, and I don't think even many academics necessarily spend a lot of time looking at this really early period, what drew you to researching this time? Dr Fulminante 8:05 Yes, thank you. Well, maybe a little bit by chance and a little bit because I was so lucky to be born in Rome. So actually, I didn't want to be an archeologist since I was a child, but it was a matter of choice. When I arrived at university. My first choice at university was to be a philologist, so actually to study the literary sources of the ancient world. But then at the University of Rome, there was a course in archeology. And I said, okay, I want to try that. So I went to the course in archeology, and the topic was exactly this one, that it was by about that time that the fortification wall around the Palatine was discovered and starting to be talked about. So I got fascinated by these early discoveries, and then I also did a dig in the form Romanum. And really I enjoyed very much because, because I realized that archeology is for me, at least for me, it's fascinating, because you have always new discoveries and new things to study and to learn about. I'm sure also the ancient sources can be re evaluated and rediscovered. But in a way, is a little bit more limited. While with archeology, there is always something new and exciting happening. So that's why I decided to go into the material side of history. But still, I use both. I try to combine both, because, in fact, actually, in my in my book, I also tried a bit to combine both material culture and literary sources. Dr G 9:49 Fantastic. A word to the philologists out there. You're going to have to change your habits. You got to find some new material guys, the archeologists, they're they're on to you. They know you're just working with the old stuff. Dr Fulminante 10:02 Yes, we actually have to collaborate. Dr G 10:07 So you note in your book that there are some real challenges around defining exactly what makes an ancient city a city, and it's an active discussion amongst scholars. So I'm interested in your take on what are some of the key features of ancient cities that emerge from your research. And obviously my lead in, because of my bias, is how unique or ubiquitous was Rome in the context that it's in, sitting in central Italy amongst other sides. Dr Fulminante 10:42 Yes, this is the question of 100,000 million dollars. But of course, even if the city started to be debated since ancient orders, is still very much a topic of debate. I would say that in the last 30 or 40 years, maybe the dominant model was, was looking at, because we are in a classical tradition, was to look at Greek and Roman cities, to see what define Greek and Roman cities, and take that as a model. So, as I mentioned, the idea of a city, especially a certain by Gordon Childe made a list of 10 characteristics. So the characteristic were having fortification, having a population of a certain size, having at least a certain level of trade, having at least a certain level of cross specialization, having at least a certain level of cross specialization, building, architectural building, and so on. And I maybe I not mentioned all the terms, but roughly about that, what I like is actually they but this kind of to do list or shopping list, sometimes it's a bit difficult, because you can have some aspects and not some other. So how you develop, how you define, which are the real city, only the one there they take all the 10 characteristic or also the one that tick eight out of 10 is a bit debatable. I like the perspective that we was actually an inner perspective from the ancient people. I there is a while ago, there has been a big study conducted by the Copenhagen, Copenhagen Research Institute, and they tried to to define what is a city. So they started collecting all the cities in in Greece, and try to see what they had, as you said, what they had in common and what's not so. Partially, they came up with the traditional view, as I just said, so fortification, an agora, religious building, political building, craft trade, as I said. But also they they published an article, which I found very interesting, because they they found out that in the ancient description, an inscription is something written on stone. They were they were common in the ancient Roman Greece. Sometimes they were public, public description, like the dedication of a monument, or there was a treaty inscribed on stone so everybody could see what the treaty said. And in this inscription, the word "poleis" is actually mostly used to indicate the community of citizens. Is not easy to indicate the physical city, but actually the people. So I think that's why we have to look to define a city, and in that sense, I believe as going back to what I said before, when we have a forum or an agora where we know the citizen was taking decision, or when we have a communal place for cult activity, when we have a fortification that indicates the communal intent of people to work together for a common goal, that is where we start having a city. Another important aspect that I emphasize is my work is also the point of connectivity. So we have to think that, as you, as you said, was wrong, peculiar, or was like many others? Well, no, it was. It was actually like many others, not only in central Italy, but in the wider Mediterranean. City didn't born and grow on their own, but they developed in collab, in a sort of collaboration. My work, and also some other more recent scholar are talking about networks of cities. So it's important the connectivity among them, and also the fact that when one node develops some new techniques on novelty, it spreads to the other and so on, so they develop a sort of of reciprocal influence. And this is a bit of a new concept developed in the last 10, 10-15, years. Because before, before that, there was a traditional idea that this, the first cities were born in the Near East. And I'm actually not denying that. Of course, they were the the earlier, the most important ones. But then the idea was that the city then moved to central Greece with the Minoan and Mycenaean civilization, and then through the colonies to Western Europe, as I try to demonstrate in my work, actually, as we have partially said in this podcast, there was already a lot going on locally from the Bronze Age onward. So as I said, it's probably, rather than seen as a diffusionist movement from east to west, is more likely to be seen as a network. Now, the only thing I wanted to add is that, on the other hand, I did also some some more recent research on a particular phenomenon, which is burial under the houses. And actually that one seems to follow, again, a little bit the movement from east to west. So I think a little bit both perspective are throwing away. So the cities of the Near East are really the first one, and more important, probably they had an impact on all the rest, but also, at least since the Iron Age onward, the other, the little the other cities in Europe, like I said, in Greece, in Italy or Spain, probably developed as a network. And we also see in the in the tomb of people, because we have some important warriors that are mainly the chief of the cities that have objects coming from all the parts of the Mediterranean. So clearly they were talking to each other and exchanging gifts, an idea it was a sort of Mediterranean elite that was trading and ruling the cities. Dr Rad 17:56 This idea of connectivity couldn't be more perfect for my next question as a segue. So why is it that understanding the transportation networks is a really valuable way to get an insight into this period of Rome's history and their relationship with the rest of Central Italy? Dr Fulminante 18:14 Certainly. Yeah, that's the core of my latest book. So basically, transportation are partially determined by the environment. Of course, routes have to follow, obviously, the easiest route. And if there is a hill or a river in the way, they cannot continue, of course. But they also are the output of social political organization, because in between different policies, there has to be at least a certain amount of cooperation or collaboration to for them to be connected by a reciprocal route. So if we, if we study the organization of transportation routes, both mainly terrestrial, which are man made, but also fluvial. And in fact, actually, my most recent research is looking at the combination of the two, our river influence, roads and road influence, or at least how they work together. So I was saying the organization the transportation routes, tells us also something about their political organization. So I started the transportation system both in the southern nechuria, which is the region to the north of the Tiber, which was inhabited by the Etruscans, and the region around Rome, which was called the Latium Vetus. And what my analysis of the transportation system discovered I did network analysis, and maybe in the next later, I can explain. Aid a bit more what this network analysis is, we used some mathematical indexes. And what the mathematical indexes told us was that Etruria, Southern Etruria, was a bit of a more cooperative region. So and we know also this from the settlement, from the size of the settlements. There was at least four or five big, large settlements of 200 in 200 hectare each, and none of them was dominating. So it was a bit of a more of equilibrium between the different cities, the different polities, while in Latium Vetus, what we can see is that only Rome, in the proto-urban period that I mentioned before, became largest. 200 hectares. All the other little cities in Rome was smaller. So in a way, the system was more centralized and hierarchical. And I suspect, of course, I mean, anybody can demonstrate anything for sure, but I suspect that this was made it more impactful, the fact that he had a centralized organization, more hierarchical that was able in India and eventually to prevail to the less hierarchical organization of Etruria. That's the conclusion I draw from my book. Dr G 21:39 Interesting. So those Etruscans, they're very cooperative, but it doesn't help them in a pinch. When it comes down to it, they're like, oh, wait a minute. So I think this might be actually leading slightly in the direction of this idea that when we think about the Bronze Age, and Rome is just a small village, and then it sort of explodes in the early Iron Age into a size that's sort of comparable with these Etruscan settlements to the north. And then, as you say, it starts to outstrip its neighbours. It becomes the largest settlement in Latium Vetus. And you pose the question in the book, why was Rome successful and not Veii and I'd really love your take on this, because we've just covered the fall of Veii from, like the written source material perspective, and obviously that's a very dramatic moment for the ancient sources when they are thinking about this. But I'm interested in what does the archeology kind of suggest to us about the rationale for they falling and Rome succeeding? Dr Fulminante 22:40 Yes, yes, partially is one of the reason is the one I mentioned before. So these different political organization of the two region, but also a very, a very important point, I think, is actually the, really the key position of Rome. Because another point that came out from my book is that often these cities developed around their forum. So often the forum of the cities, the principal place is at the middle of a crossroad of regional and inter-regional routes, and in a way, via Rome, were actually really special. And not only we can see that from the geography because they are both nearly opposite each other in near the Tiber, but actually also my mathematical calculation gave some similar indexes for the two cities. So really, so they had similar trend, so really shown that they were specular. But I think probably what, what really helped Rome, and I'm sorry I have to maybe go back to the ancient sources. It's really his position on the fort of the Tiber in the middle of Italy, because really, that was a very important crossing point connecting the sud [the south], the north of Italy, the center of the region. So it was really, really an invaluable position, even if I'm going back actually to the traditional explanation. But I think that they see probably the more the more plausible, so a combination of both very favorable position, a good political organization, and also another thing, but not last thing, is also important, that we know that Rome was always open to accept people in his citizenship. So from the very original myth of the of the Latin and the Sabines, so they incorporated the Sabines. And then later in the Roman Republic and also in the Imperial time, they always accepted people within their political community. So I think this, this combination favorable position, good political organization, and openness to the foreigners. Dr Rad 25:16 Intriguing. I was really hoping you were also going to mention the tunnel that Rome apparently dug in today as part of your research. Dr G 25:29 Yeah, and Veii's position on this tufa outpost. It's completely unassailable. Clearly. Dr Rad 25:35 Now we'd like to get a bit technical, if we may, you mentioned earlier that part of your research involves this network science approach when you're trying to explore the early connections between the Etruscan and Latin communities. This is completely new terminology to us. So can you please tell us a little bit about what a network science approach is and how it might better help us to understand relations in the Archaic period. Dr Fulminante 26:04 Yes, the network science actually developed within the social science. In its origin, it was used to study, for example, a group of children in a classroom or people in an organization. And it was used, for example, to to analyze this relation in this sense. So for example, you have a group of school children, and you ask them, Who is your friend? Who do you talk to most? Who do you share your secret with? Who do you ate? And then, so you have this these children are represented by nodes, and their relation, which is if they share a secret or not, or if they are friends or not, is represented by a link that can have a positive value if they're friend, or a negative value if they are not a friend. So you build a graph with these the nodes are the children and the link is their relation. You build a graph, and then you can model a certain scenario. So for example, you can find out that Camilla is very central to the group, because she shares secret with everybody, but actually the more popular guy is Rob or whatever. And similarly, in an organization, you can distinguish between the official hierarchy and actually what the gossip and the not official communication tells you so often, you can get different insight on one organization, and this can be transferred to cities and regions as well, where the nodes are the cities and the links of you can value the link, for example, on the basis of the distance, is one value - of distance a day. And similarly, you can calculate which center is more central, in the sense that, for example, if you have an ideal traveler, which center is passed by more often by this ideal traveler. So you can you can understand which settlement is travel more often, or which settlement is key to control flows among other cities. Or you can check which settlement is actually the most connected regionally, so it can reach the old region more easily all these sort of measure and values. And probably I also would like to understand in this, in this particular case, to thank some Spanish colleagues that work at the University of Barcelona that specifically helped me with we using these, these mathematical tools, and they were very good because they also made them very accessible to me. As my husband says, I'm really an art student. Dr G 29:18 I was already intimidated when I was like, I think we might be speaking with a mathematician. So I'm so outside of my field right now, but what you're saying, the way you're describing, it sounds super important, actually. So if we're thinking about how cities are connected to each other, I think obviously this flows in nicely to thinking about how that sort of warrior culture was operating with those high value goods that might be traded amongst those networks. And then, as we get further into thinking about the significance of centrality, because you've already mentioned that Rome is ideally positioned in some respects, because it's right on the Tiber where it's on the Tiber as well, and so is it sitting in one of these central node locations in terms of his network? Dr Fulminante 30:01 Yes, it was actually also mathematically. It turned out that it was one. It was a central node in that sense as well, and and also had a lot of links to the connecting cities. So yeah, it was basically demonstrated also mathematically the geographical and environmental assumption, yes. And also the other thing I want you also said correctly, the goods and yeah, you can do networks also based on objects, and in the further in different studies, in an article, I did some of that, the only thing is with objects. So in this book, there is only the roads analyzed. In another article, I take also into consideration the impact of the object, but it's a bit more difficult to do those because, because also of the natural excavation, sometimes you have a site that has been very well excavated and another one that has not, and that creates a bit of an imbalance. So it's not so easy, actually, to be networks of objects, but we are trying to do that. Different scholars are also trying to do that. Dr G 31:19 Yeah, I think this is always the challenge, isn't it? With archeology, it's like, how, how good is the site when you find it eventually. And I think this leads nicely into thinking about how rivers connect into this idea of transportation as well. So you mentioned that roads and rivers are operating side by side as part of this network system. What are some of the connections that we're seeing between the Etruscans and the Romans in the Archaic period when it comes to river networks? Dr Fulminante 31:47 Yeah, that's also an interesting question. I analyze both the system separately, so only Etruria within, within without connecting it to Latium. And then I consider also both the regions together, also also with the friend of the Spanish colleagues. And first of all, what emerged from the analysis was that rivers apparently were more important in the Bronze Age than in the Iron Age, at least internally to the region. Because, yeah, probably, as I said, with the Iron Age, there is also, we know also from the tombs, that a lot of charts and chariots are going to be used more often. So probably, indeed, road routes were developed a bit more. But when actually you combine the two, both Etruria and Latium, what you see is a much more close collaboration. And especially it emerges that the in the archive period, the river that grows exponentially in importance, is the time arrival. And that's actually also it combines very well with what we know from other sources, and from, as you said, from general trade of the objects, that actually because, because Rome is unifying the whole region, we have a much more commerce and trade starting to flow from the internal part of Italy to the coast and vice versa. So I was quite happy with that, because once again, the mathematical model was partially converging with what we know from material culture and literary sources. So definitely, they the river and the roads are collaborating. But especially, they collaborate very well, especially from the arcade period. And this is also the time when the Tiber emerge as as a sort of river motorway in central Italy. Dr G 34:02 It's getting busy out there. Look out! It's just more barges going up and down. Dr Rad 34:07 I'm thinking about another important aspect of Rome itself. How has your research helped to expand our understanding of the forum Romanum in terms of its function and role in this transportation network in the region. Dr Fulminante 34:21 Yes, I partially answered earlier on. It turns out that, therefore, as I said, exactly at the crossroad, and we actually, if I may supporting and corroborate in this point, I will bring in the study also of a colleague of mine, Amy Russell, who has written a very nice paper on the different perception of the foreign in the past and now in Rome. So our point is that if you think about the forum Romanum now, it's all very enclosed within the boundaries, and it feels like a closed space, while Via di Fori Imperiali nowadays feels like an open space because it's crossed by the road Via di Fori Imperiali and all the Imperial Fora are open. But actually, if we try to get a more close perception as the ancient, we have to think that the forum, the forum, was a bustling place, with a lot of vehicles and people going in and out and across, especially from and also from the Via Sacra, with the triumphal route and all of that, while the Imperial fora were enclosed in their big construction, and they all had the colonnade around them, both the Formum of Augustus, and later the Forum of - the transitional Forum of Nero, and also the Forum of Trajan, so I found it actually quite interesting that the perception of people today and what probably was originally in the past is actually the opposite. And as I said, we have to fit. We have to remember that the forum was this open place at the at the crossroad of important regional and inter-regional routes. So very, very much a melting pot and a place of encounters. Dr G 36:22 I think this is fascinating to keep in mind, because when we think of the forum, I think for a lot of Roman historians, particularly, we think about it as this political space, and it is public, and it is open to a certain extent, but it's very much about what's happening in the city, and about the city, rather than it being a connective place that is drawing together a whole bunch of network systems to come together in a central location. And so I think that's great for expanding our appreciation of the multiple things that the forum is doing at the same time in terms of the way it sits in that space and the way that people are interacting with it. Dr Fulminante 37:02 Yeah, exactly. Dr G 37:03 So to wrap up, I'm interested in what is the one thing about the Archaic period of Central Italy that you've learned from your research that you'd love to see become more broadly understood. Dr Fulminante 37:18 I think partially, all what we have, we have said just now, but I'm, I'm particularly, as you said, I think I'm particularly attached to this year - to this idea - of connectivity, because I think it brings a little bit more of a democratic view into into the origins of Rome, and then the other one I'm also particularly attached to, even if it's partially the traditional one, is really the important of the position of Rome, because that was a very traditional view that had been a little bit abandoned by scholar and a bit trivialized. But actually I think that it really still holds some value. So I would like to bring it a bit more forward. And then, as you said, I also find the fascinating this idea of of the forum as connecting places, that I'm very much surprised how much these ancient communities were multicultural and multi-vocal, more than we tend to think. And probably we could learn a bit more about this respect. Dr G 38:35 Absolutely. Yeah, there is plenty to learn. And I think giving Rome its due for sitting in that central location and making the most of it as it goes along. Dr Rad 38:48 I was going to say I feel like the Romans themselves will be thrilled with your conclusion. Dr G 38:54 The Romans will be very pleased with the outcome of this conversation. Thank you so much Francesca for sitting down. Dr Fulminante 39:03 Yeah, I opened up to bias. I was brought up in Rome so I might be a bit biassed. Dr Rad 39:09 Nonsense. Nonsense. Dr G 39:10 Totally okay. I can appreciate it. Rome is the most beautiful city in the world, and it continues to be so, and I'm not going to pretend otherwise. I think your bias is perfectly aligned with mine. Thank you so much for taking the time to join us, Francesca and to share your ideas. I think they're really valuable. Dr Fulminante 39:29 It has been a pleasure. Dr Rad 39:30 Thank you so much. Dr G 39:41 Thank you for listening to this episode of the partial historians. You can find our sources sound credits and transcript in our show notes. Over at partialhistorians.com. We offer a huge thank you to you if you're one of our illustrious Patreon supporters. If you enjoy the show, we'd love your support in a way that works for you. Leaving a nice review really makes our day. We're on Ko-Fi for one off or ongoing donations on Patreon, of course. Our latest book, "Your Cheeky Guide to the Roman Empire", is published through Ulysses Press. It is full of stories that the Romans probably don't want you to know about them. This book is packed with some of our favourite tales of the colourful history of ancient Rome. Treat yourself or an open minded friend to Rome's glories, embarrassments and most salacious claims with "Your Cheeky Guide to the Roman Empire". Transcribed by https://otter.ai