Walker - 1967 - A geography of Italy

* Italian land was first taxed in the second century AD, and this reflects a stage in the
worsening fiscal conditions of the Empire.
18
PART l; SOME GEOGRAPHY AND HISTORY
for help and protection. In an age devoid o f mechanical invention, production
depended more directly on manpower, and under Constantine the peasant was
shackled to the soil and the mass of the cultivated land o f Italy was tilled by
countrymen who, whatever their status, were dependent legally or practically on
their local lord. Agricultural specialization declined as the trading horizon shrank,
and all too often the eificient landowner became the target o f the tax-gatherer.^
And yet despite all these troubles city life in Italy, with its squalor and luxury, its
baths and its doles, seems to have flourished up to, and in some cases long after,
the onslaught o f the barbarian.
IT A L Y D U R IN G TH E D A R K AGES
The twilight o f the Empire emphasized the inadequacy o f the Alpine barrier as
a defence against invasion without the strong arm o f a Marius or a Stilicho to
confirm it. The low Julian and Carnic Alps were forced in 408 by Alaric’s Visigothic
host and again in 452 by the Huns under Attila. Ostrogoths, Lombards and
Magyars were to reinforce the lesson. Similarly the events o f the period underlined
the vulnerability o f peninsular Italy to a strong sea power. In 440 Sicily had
fallen to the Vandals who sacked Rome itself in 455. In the sixth century Sicily
and much o f the coastland o f peninsular Italy were to come under the control of
another naval power, Byzantium, and thereafter o f the Saracens and Normans. In
fact Sicily and at times the adjoining peninsular coast, both o f which we tend to
regard as essentially part o f Italy, hved an existence independent o f it. For
many centuries to come Sicily was less o f an outpost o f Italy than a Mediterranean
halfway house, as in pre-Roman times, a prize for the dominant sea power
whether based in Europe or Africa. The divorce o f Sardinia from Italy, until the
Middle Ages, was if anything more complete.
T h e reign of Odovacar was challenged in 489 by Theodoric the Ostrogoth,
who, armed with a mandate from the Eastern Emperor, overthrew the Herulian
and established an Ostrogothic kingdom which remained secure till his death in
526. This is a convenient point at which to pause and examine the changes
wrought by the first century o f barbarian invasions on the geography o f Italy.
The unity o f the Mediterranean trading world had been shattered. The shores
o f the Western Basin were controlled by barbarians, the most powerful o f which
on the sea were the piratical Vandals o f North Africa, and only in the Eastern
Basin did trade continue in any volume under the protection o f the Byzantine
navy. Italy in the fifth century was thrust back on its own resources. The Egyptian
grain export was monopolized by Constantinople, and until Theodoric retook the
island, the fields o f Sicily were under Vandal domination. Similarly the corn o f
North Africa and Sardinia was denied to Italy until Justinian’s counter-attack in
the sixth century. The Alpine passes into Gaul, southern Germany and the