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Roman Age in Tuscany Italy

The Romans established their supremacy in Tuscany at the beginning of the 3rd century B.C. between the latest Samnite wars and the first Punic war. Sometimes their leadership was hindered by the alliance of the Etruscans with the Gaul’s, but it was all the same fostered by the support of some Etruscan towns as Arezzo, Cortona, and Perugia. We can't state, however, that Romanization destroyed the pre-existing civilization in Tuscany as it strongly influenced the new conquerors.

The Etruscan ruling class was gradually absorbed into the Roman civilization and the language as well: in the last century B.C. the Etruscan language was almost completely replaced by Latin, owing to the considerable immigrations of farmers who renovated the old towns and founded new ones.

In the first century, thanks to the Roman government, the country flourished. The territory was mostly governed according to a federal system that gave some formal autonomy to the towns before naturalizing all Italian citizens as Romans (91 B.C.). In addition to this, the Roman government improved public works and large communication routes as well. These linked Rome to Etruria and Cisalpine Gaul. They created the following ways: via Aurelia (along the coast), Clodia (which linked Veio to Aurelia), Cassia (from Rome to Fiesole) and Flaminia (through Arezzo and the Apennine to Emilia). In spite of this in the last period of the Republican times Etruria began to suffer an increasing decline.

In fact it became the site of the civil wars fought by the Romans and the area where a terrible disease, malaria, spread, especially along the coast. Besides all this Etruria had to face a crisis in the production of winter wheat (no longer profitable because of important from the East and Egypt) and in the mining industry.

At the beginning of the imperial age Etruria was, for these reasons, a country on a decline and subject to an increasing depopulation. The Emperor Augustus tried, with proper laws, to give the country a better future defining it as "the 7th region", having its borders with the Tuscan-Emilian Apennine and, to the South, with the river Tiber.

At the end of the 3rd century the Emperor Diocleziano established new regulations: Etruria, (already known as "Tuscia") was administered together with Umbria. Head of the region was a "Corrector" who seated at Florentia. Later, when the empire reached its decline, the northern part of Etruria was joined to Emilia.

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