Rome 03: The Ancient Italian Peninsula

In the past lectures, I spoke about the Ancient Mediterranean. We saw that this was a belligerent political arena fraught with peril. We saw that the annual calendar was developed around agriculture. Men fought with neighboring communities in the Summer but returned home to tend to their crops in the Fall. Today we are going to zoom in and look more closely at the Italian Peninsula in particular just before Rome began to dominate its neighbors. What is the geography of the Italian Peninsula? What kind of crops are particularly suited to grow there? How was early Italy divided? What was the chief form of government on the peninsula? What languages were spoken? Why was Rome particularly suited to grow effectively? These are some of the questions that shall frame our discussion.