Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Eastern Influences
Roman control of southern Italy was to set the tone for centuries to come. While they
turned the Bay of Naples into a holiday hot spot for emperors and built the Via Appia
(280-264 BC) and later the Via Appia Traiana (AD 109) - the first superhighway to the
south from Rome - the Romans also stripped the southern landscape of its trees, creating
just the right conditions for the malarial scourge that the region would face centuries later.
They parcelled up the land into huge
latifondi
(estates) that they distributed among a hand-
ful of wealthy Romans, who established a damaging agricultural monoculture of wheat to
feed the Roman army. Local peasants, meanwhile, were denied even the most basic rights
of citizenship.
Despite the Romans' attempts at Latinising the region, this period actually had the effect
of reinforcing Eastern influences on the south. As it was, the Romans admired and emu-
lated Greek culture, the locals in cities like Neapolis (modern-day Naples) continued to
speak Greek, and the Via Appia made Puglia the gateway to the East. In AD 245 when
Diocletian came to power, he decided that the empire was simply too vast for good gov-
ernance and split it in two. When Constantine came to power in AD 306, the groundwork
was already established for an Eastern (Byzantine) Empire and a Western Empire - in AD
324 he officially declared Constantinople the capital of Nova Roma.
With southern Italy's proximity to the Balkans and the Near East, Puglia and Basilicata
were exposed to a new wave of Eastern influence, bringing with it a brand-new set of
Christian beliefs. These new ideas reached Sicily in AD 535, when the Byzantine general
Belisarius landed an army on the island's shores. Despite falling to the Visigoths in AD 470
after more than 700 years of Roman occupation, the island's population was still largely
Greek, both in language and custom. The Byzantines were eager to use Sicily as a launch-
ing pad for the retaking of the lands owned by the combined forces of Arabs, Berbers and
Spanish Muslims, collectively known as the Saracens, but their dreams were not to be real-
ised.
In AD 827 the Saracen army landed at Mazara del Vallo, in Sicily. Palermo fell in AD
831, followed by Syracuse in AD 878. Under them, churches were converted to mosques
and Arabic was implemented as the common language. At the same time, much-needed
land reforms were introduced and trade, agriculture and mining were fostered. New crops
were introduced, including citrus trees, date palms and sugar cane, and a system of water
supply and irrigation was developed. Palermo was chosen as the capital of the new emirate
and, over the next 200 years, it became one of the most splendid cities in the Arab world.
