Sicily from the Augustan periodo to the Middle Empire: what "romanization"?

Abstract

From a political-cultural point of view, the impact of the Roman conquest of Sicily can be seen in different aspects: for example, the policy of conquest, the flow of Italici in the island since the II century. B.C., the adoption of architectural structures of Italic tradition already from the Hellenistic age, especially in the sacred architecture. Of course, the situation in Sicily is particularly complex because the Romans did not come into contact with a single culture, but at least with three different ones: the indigenous ("Hellenized"), the Punic and the Greek (in its western colonial form). This makes it particularly difficult to provide a unified picture of the problem. If the relationship with the Punic culture can be seen, even with its specificity, within the broader framework of the contact between the Roman-Italic culture and the Punic-Hellenistic culture, in one with Africa, and if compared to the indigenous communities , especially in western Sicily, one can effectively use the formula "become Greeks to be philoromani”, it is more difficult to understand the relationship with the Greek-Hellenistic culture of the island, because the comparison with other areas of the Hellenistic world, such as Greece itself or Asia Minor, helps us only to a certain degree. Even more complex is the problem if we face it from other non-geographic points of view, such as the differentiation between cities and countryside or the reaction with respect to Roman culture within different social classes. In this sense, the Augustan policy of founding Roman colonies on the island has long been identified as a central turning point, because it involved the massive introduction of Italian settlers in the selected cities and new owners in the countryside. In the cities, the impact on the urban landscape was mainly studied, such as the transformation of the agora into a forum with the fundamental introduction of the imperial cult, the arrangement of equipped or functional areas, and the adoption of new architectural forms, such as the amphitheatre, necessary for the lifestyle of the new settlers. In this work we want to explore more about the role of the different classes present on the island: The Roman settlers, the Italics who have been living in Sicily for a long time, the local Hellenistic ruling classes, the subordinate population. And turn our gaze to the countryside, to try to capture signs of continuity and discontinuity with the previous situation or with the contemporary reality of the cities, especially in the territories of the Roman colonies.