Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography Volume II.djvu/109

 ITALIA. portion containing Samnium (to which the land of the Hirpini, inclvuled by Au£;ustns in the second region, was reunited), together with the Frentar.i and Peligni; while the land of the Sabines, the SLirsi, and the Vestini, constituted a separate district, which bore tile name of Valeria, from the great highway, the Via Valeria, by which it was traversed. 2. The portion of the sixth region which lay between the Apennines and the Adriatic (originally inhabited by the Gauls) was separated from Uuibria properly so called, and distinguished by the name of Picenum Annonarium, while the true ricenum was called, for the sake of distinction, Picenum Suburbicarium. 3. The eighth region, or Gallia Cispadana, was di- vided into two, of which the westernmost portion assumed the name of Aejiima, from the highroad of that name; an aj)pellation which seems to have come into common use as early as the time of JIartial (iii. 4, vi. 85): while the eastern portion, much the smaller of the two, received that of Flaminia, though the highroad of that name only extended to Ari- niinum, on the very frontier of this district. This new division seems to have been generally united with Picenum Annonarium, though retaining its separate name. 4. The Alpes Cottiae, a mountain district which in the time of Augustus had still retained its nominal independence, though incor- porated with the Roman empire by Nero, seems to liave continued to form a separate district till the time of Constantine, who united it with the ninth region, the whole of which now came to be known as the Alpes Cottiae: while, still more strangely, the name of Liguria was transferred from this region, to which it properly belonged, to the eleventh region, or Gallia Transpadana; so that late writers speak of Mediolaimm as the capital of Liguria. [LiGUKiA.] 5. The only other change that re- quires notice was the division of Etruria into two portions, called Tuscia Annonaria and Tuscia Urhi- caria. This, as well as the similar distinction be- tween the two Picenums, had its origin in the ad- ministrative arrangements introduced by JIaximian, who, when he established the imperial residence at Milan, imposed upon the northern and adjoining provinces the task of finding supplies (annonae) for the imperial court and followers, while the other portions ot Italy were charged with similar burdens for the supply of Rome. (Mommsen, ad Lib. Col. ])p. 198—200.) Hence Trebellius Pollio, writing in the reign of Diocletian, after enumerating the districts of Southern and Central Italy, comprises all that lay N. of Flaminia and Etruria under the general appellation of " omnis annonaria regio." (Treb. Poll. Trig. Tyr. 24.) In addition to these changes, Constantine, in the general reorganisation of his empire, united to Italy the two provinces of Pihaetia (including Vindelicia), as well as the three great islands of Sicily, Sar- dinia, and Corsica. These last, together with all the central and southern provinces of Italy, were placed under the jurisdiction of the Vicarius Urbis Romae, while all the northem provinces were subject to the Vicarius Italiae. The minor arrangements seem to have frequently varied in detail, but the seventeen provinces into which the " Dioecesis Italiae " was now divided, are thus enumerated in the Notitia Dignitatum (ii. pp. 9, 10): — 1. Venetia. 2. Aemilia. .3. Liguria (i. e. Gallia Transpadana). 4. Flaminia et Picenimt Annonarium. ITALIA. 93 5. Tuscia et Umbria. 6. Picenum Suburbicarimn. 7. Campania. 8. Sicilia. 9. Apulia et Calabria. 10. Lucania et Bruttil. 11. Alpes Cottiae (Liguria). 12. Raetia Prima. 13. Raetia Secunda. 14. Samnium. 15. Valeria. 16. Sardinia. 17. Corsica. This list substantially agrees with that in the Libellus Provinciarum (published by Gronovius, Lugd. Bat. 1739), a document of the time of Theodosius I., as well as with that given by Paulus Diaconus in his geographical description of Italy {Hut. Lang. ii. 14 — 22), though he has added an eighteenth province, to which he gives the name of "' Alpes Apennini:" which can be no other than the northern part of Etruria, or Tuscia Annonaria. Of the seventeen provinces enumerated in the Notitia eight were placed under governors who bore the title of Consulares, seven under Pracsides, and the two southernmost under Correctores, a title which appears to have been at one time common to them all. (For further details on the administrative divisions of Italy during the latter period of the Roman cmiire, see the Notitia LJignitatum in Partihus Occidcntis, Bonn, 1840, with Bocking's valuable commentary; Mommsen, iibe7' die Lib. Colon, in the Schriftcn der liOmischen Feldmesser, vol. ii. Berlin, 1852; Marquardt, Ilandb. der Rum. AUerthdmer, vol. iii. pt. i. pp. 55 — 71.) The divisions thus established before the close of the Western Empire, were continued after its fall under the Gothic monarchy, and we find them fre- quently alluded to as subsisting under their old names in Cassiodorus and Procopius. It was not till the establishment of the Lombards in Italy that this division gave place to one wholly ditl'ercnt, which became the foundation of that which subsisted in the middle ages. The Lombards divided the part of Italy in which they established their power, including all the N., or what is now called Lom- bardg, together with a part of Tuscany and Umbria, into a number of military fiefs or governments, under the name of Duchies (Ducatus) : the Duchy of Friuli, Duchy of Verona, Duchy of Pavia, &c. Be- sides those immediately subject to the Lombard kings, two of these were established further to the S., — the Duchy of Spoleto and Duchy of Benevento, which enjoyed a semi-independent position : and the last of these was extended by successive conquests from the Greek Empire, till it comprised almost the whole of the S. of Italy, or the modern kingdom of Naples. The Greek "emperors, however, still re- tained possession of the Exarchate of Ravenna, to- gether with the district called the Pentapolis, com- prising a considerable part of Picenum, and what was called the Duchy of Rome, including a part of Etruria and Umbria, as well as Latium. In the S. also they always kept possession of some of the maritime places of Campania, Naples, Gaeta, and Salerno, as well as of a part of Calahria, and the cities of Otranto and Gallipoli. After the fall of the Lombard kingdom, in a.d. "74, though they had now lost their possessions in the N., the Exar- chate and the Pentapolis, the Byzantine emperors