Expert: Maria - 10/7/2003

Question
Hello Maria.
  Maria, when Rome had its empire, the people of Rome were all citizens,but what about the other people who lived in Italy, and not in Rome,were they just Italians or what were they called?

Answer
Hello Frank,

This is a quite complex question, though it seems to be very simple.
Anyway I'll try to give you a concise answer, however possible it is.

So, at the beginning of the rise of  Rome, only the inhabitants of this city, founded in 753 BC according to tradition, were Roman citizens and were just called  ROMANS.
The other people who lived in  Italy, but not in Rome, were NOT called Italians in general, but they were  Latins (i.e. inhabitants of a region, Latium, meaning ‘flat country'), Etruscans, Volscans,  Samnites, Oscans, Iapygians, Gauls, Veneti, Ligurians, Umbrians, Apuli, Calabri, Lucani,  Sardes, Sicanians.

In short each people retained its original name, though almost all of them were Indo-Europeans having the same origin and  speaking cognate languages.
Only later (ca.in 90 BC), when Rome  grew in power and  conquered the rest of the Italy, the Roman citizenship was extended to all Italy, though with some limitations.

It was then that the word “ITALI”(Latin for ‘ITALIANS') was first used and spread from South to North of the Italian peninsula.

This Latin  name “ITALI” derived of course from the word ITALIA which originally indicated only the South of Italy, i.e. the region that today is called Calabria, while an official recognition of the name occurred  later, during the rule of the Emperor Augustus.

From then on,  all the inhabitants of Italy were called ITALI or ITALICI  in Latin, that is ITALIANS.

Hope all is clear enough.
Greetings from Italy.
Maria