When Did the Romans Become Italians? (Short Animated Documentary)

1700 years ago the people who lived in what's now Italy considered themselves to be Romans. Of course nowadays none of them do anymore which raises the question: when did this change occur? When did the Romans become Italians? To find out watch this short and simple animated documentary.

A special thanks to all of these Patrons below, without whom the show wouldn't be possible:

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[williammerkel]

The frolicking through a field of flowers absolutely never gets old.

[rushtestecho]

Mario + Pizza = Italy

How do I, a history teacher, compete with these groundbreaking theories?

[robynpeace]

As a neapolitan living in Naples I now identity myself as an ice cream flavor

[marcot]

What people fail to realize is that Italy as a geographical entity was already established before Rome, and its inhabitants were called Italic people. In fact, Italic people lived in the area a long way before Rome, and they were actually also the people who first settled in the river Tevere and founded Rome itself. Rome was an Italic city which later was conquered by the Etrurians, then gained independence and proceeded to conquer the other Italic cities and peoples, including the Etrurians themselves. But even within the long domain of the Roman Empire Italy and Italic peoples were acknowledged and considered Rome’s associates and allies with Rome as a ruling power. So the concept of Italy and Italians (Italic back then) existed before Rome, throughout Rome and after Rome. There isn’t actually a time when Romans became Italians. Romans were born as inhabitants of an Italian city and were primarily Italian people

[davethefish]

“Romans, they existed, some stuff happened, and now they don’t. My thanks to James Bizonnette, ”

[kellie]

When did the people in Italy stop calling themselves Roman and start calling themselves Italian?

Between the years of 476 and 1861.

[skeetersaurus]

The opening is most-accurate, "Romans, they existed, some stuff happened, now they don't". Time span? 2, 000 years...give or take.

[michelangelomissoni]

As the famous saying goes, on the dawn of Italian Unification, “We made Italy. Now we must make Italians”
Italy and Italians have been a people long before the city state of Rome rose up. However, they fractured so much, within such a climatically diverse peninsula, that over a thousand+ years later they no longer felt a common identity. Even though they had always been geographically Italian.

[TailsIsDisappointed]

Fun fact: The manhole covers in Rome have the "SPQR" labels on them.

[johnyricco]

It’s simple: Romans became Italians when they started wearing pants.

[JordanBeagle]

Wow, this was a lot more descriptive than I expected for a 3 minute video, kudos mate

[hamperfranklin]

2:42 Ah, yes Mario and Pizza. The two core values of being an Italian

[georgeprchal]

When they stopped being played by British people in historical dramas.

[harveyaa]

They would still exist if they had the financial support of James Bizonnette

[creeproot]

almost everyone who mentions this topic seems to either forget to mention or misreport the fact that the “italian” identity is not merely a modern idea - the Roman Empire saw Italia (which is, by the way, a latin word) as the fatherland and birthplace of the Empire.

_Italia (the Latin and Italian name for the Italian Peninsula) was the homeland of the Romans and metropole of Rome's empire in classical antiquity. According to Roman mythology, Italy was the ancestral home promised by Jupiter to Aeneas of Troy and his descendants, who were the founders of Rome_

_As provinces were being established throughout the Mediterranean, Italy maintained a special status which made it Domina Provinciarum ("Ruler of the Provinces"), and - especially in relation to the first centuries of imperial stability - Rectrix Mundi ("governor of the world") and Omnium Terrarum Parens ("parent of all lands"). Such a status meant that, within Italy in times of peace, Roman magistrates also exercised the Imperium domi (police power) as an alternative to the Imperium militiae (military power). Italy's inhabitants had Latin Rights as well as religious and financial privileges._

as a final note piece, I’d also like to present to you a curious example of how even the Italian language - despite having had 2500 years of time to diverge from the frozen-in-time form of Classical Latin studied in textbooks - can give us clues on the real connection between these two cultural identities, when analysed in its historical vocabulary.

From the New Englander and Yale Review, January 1843:

_“The great etymological affinity between Italian and Latin, is illustrated by the following lines addressed to Venice, by a citizen of that republic before its fall, which read equally in both languages”:_

Te saluto, alma Dea, Dea generosa,
O gloria nostra, O Veneta Regina!
In procelloso turbine funesto
Tu regnasti secura; mille membra
Intrepida prostrasti in pugna acerba.
Per te miser non fui, per te non gemo;
Vivo in pace per te. Regna, O beata,
Regna in prospera sorte, in alta pompa,
In augusto splendore, in aurea sede.
Tu serena, tu placida, tu pia,
Tu benigna; tu salva, ama, conserva.

[ThatOneGuy_James]

"Always has been"
_Points spaghetti with malicious intent_

[Pemmont]

Fun fact: There's apparently a tiny population of ethnic Greeks living in the old city of Istanbul (about 2, 000), who are still called "Rumi"' - The Romans.

[ChessedGamon]

"When Did the Romans Become Italians?"

As soon as Civ stops using Rome as a shoe-in for an Italian civ

[vladywashere]

Being culturally Italian is a beautiful definition, a bit like being German; it is not about borders and nations but identity, language and background.

[scanida]

I‘d like to know: How did the rest of Europe react to the Franco-Prussian war?