Mechanisms of community formation in pre-Roman Italy

Abstract

Models of identity and community formation across the ancient world, and especially in pre-Roman Italy, have long relied on an oppositional, in-group/out-group paradigm of identity formation that privileges the social performance and differentiation that occurs at the boundaries of social groups. The emphasis is on the creation of an ‘Other’ – in art, war, trade, and other interactions. This chapter offers an alternative paradigm of community formation that focuses on the complex internal latticework of interactions and connections that bind individuals and groups together over time. These networks of connections are the basis of long-term social cohesion and provide the foundation for later identities – civic, ethnic, or state – as well as a useful framework for understanding the nature of communities within the highly connected landscape of pre-Roman Italy. Drawing on historical and ethnographic data, this chapter first explores the impact that the landscape of western central Italy would have had on structuring connectivities across the region, notably through cyclical pastoral mobility between different ecological zones. It then assesses the possible social implications of such economic connections over time, in particular the importance of long-distance social connections, fuelled by low-level but constant mobility. These economic and social connections were, in fact, actively encouraged and facilitated through the development of institutional mechanisms, such as regional sanctuaries and festivals, that served to structure the relationship between different groups. It is from this interlocking web of connections, from which moments of identity activation might emerge, that the contours of community in pre-Roman Italy come into focus.