6. Conclusion: Amorite Identity in the Long Durée

The long history of developments contributing to the creation of Amorite social identity are framed in the context of sources of social power that were acquired by Amorites from the mid-third to the mid-second millennium BC. This interpretation is supported by a brief examination of the legacy of Amorite identity immediately after the end of the Middle Bronze Age, when a loss of ideological, economic, military, and political power contributed to a critical decline in the importance of social identification with Amorites.

According to the literary tradition, the early Roman republic seems to have been characterised by a severe economic and social crisis. Foreign policy reveals a dramatic change in local geopolitics, in that the Roman hegemony in central Tyrrhenian Italy in the early decades of the republic appears to have been challenged by a series of attacks against the city, mainly by Sabinians, Volscians and the Etruscans of Veii, which probably led to the loss of control of some border regions.

Natural resources and geographic position are not of value in themselves, but become so when exploited according to the political and economic inputs of each historical phase. Natural harbours, mineral deposits, pasture and agricultural land play different roles, on the basis of the willingness and possibilities of local communities to engage in exploitation and trade.

It is clear that after 600 BC Rome was the largest city in the whole of central Tyrrhenian Italy, as well one of the most active cities in the whole Mediterranean basin. Despite the scarcity of funerary contexts, we now have important evidence in terms of architecture and urbanism, as well increased evidence from inscriptions.

3. Beyond Pastoralism: Diaspora and Opportunity, 2200–2000 BC

Following a significant decline in local environmental conditions ca. 2200 B.C., which contributed to the collapse of agropastoralism in the zone of uncertainty, the movements of Amorite refugees are documented from Mesopotamia to the Levant. Mercenarism and state service are highlighted as significant avenues to economic and political power across the Near East in the late third millennium.

Latial Phase IVB is characterised by a marked decrease in the number of burials, which are set within a framework of greater austerity compared to Phase IVA. For example, there are 130 known funerary contexts in the necropolis of Castel di Decima for Phase IVA but only ten for Phase IVB. Similarly, the necropolis of Riserva del Truglio contains twenty-seven IVA tombs but only three for Phase IVB, while the ninety-five tombs from the oppidum of Acqua Acetosa Laurentina thus far identified belong entirely to Phase IVA. Some rock-cut chamber tombs of this phase are attested in Rome by Esquiline tomb 125, as well as others at Crustumerium, Torrino and Gabii.

The literary tradition seems to treat the economy of early Rome rather ambiguously. On the one hand, the Augustan rhetoric of Livy and Dionysius describes the Rome of the last three kings as a wealthy community; on the other, the same historians and other scholars from the late republic proposed a mythical image of austerity embedded in an economy of pastoralism and basic agriculture.

The site of Rome was settled from the mid-Palaeolithic onward, as shown by lithic instruments from this period found in two contexts on the Palatine, as well as in the Esquiline area. Thereafter, there is a large body of evidence for settlement from the Neolithic onward, when we have the earliest signs of permanent settlement and an agricultural economy. In fact, the area of the modern province of Rome, corresponding to 5,352 km, has revealed evidence of no fewer than 103 Neolithic sites. The majority of these are situated on the fertile tufa soil of the Sabatine and Alban volcanoes, near to streams, rivers and ancient lakes. Worthy of note is the continuity of settlement at the future site of Rome, as shown by the evidence of mid-Neolithic pottery from the northern Palatine slope.