On the role of Fulginia and Hispellum in the process of Romanization of the Umbrian Valley. History of a landscape and its formae, and related methodological issues

Abstract

The article, starting from the examination of the studies conducted so far on the territory of the Umbrian Valley in search of evidences of the Roman centuriations, and of the first attempts at hydrogeological reclamation of the valley, proposes an updated interpretation of the evolutionary dynamics of the ancient landscape. Events that occur at the same time as the political history of ancient Umbria in which the fortunes of Hispellum and Fulginia are closely intertwined together with Mevania and Spoletium. This happens through forms of "Romanization" which, however, occurs in peculiar and distinct ways, which shape and structure a more modern, open and innovative economic organization, based on intense commercial exchanges with Rome, through the complex river-lake system of the Tiber basin; systematizing and fiscally reorganizing, also the practice of transhumance which, since the most remote antiquity, linked Umbrians and Etruscans in common annual rites in Volsinii. This part of ancient Umbria, now perfectly integrated into the Roman political system, was then strongly involved in the power struggles of the 1st century. B.C. during which the territory, already organized and reclaimed, will see renewed deductions of Caesar's veterans and colonists of Octavian who, once he became Augustus, will also take care of the renewal and updating of ancient and respected forms of worship.