The politics of power : The cities of Italy

Despite a plethora of attempts, no single economic model for the ancient city has yet been found satisfactory. Yet Weber's original description laid as much stress on the relationship of the city to power as to wealth. In Italy we have been too ready to relate an evident «rupture» in the construction of public buildings of the cities after the Julio-Claudian period to an economic decline, and to a «crisis» in the countryside which still remains highly debateable. If Italian cities were chiefly founded for sociopolitical reasons, the decline in their public life must be attributed to similar causes. The basic problem of the Italian city was not economic but lis- val, the continual drift to Rome of the richest landowners and their unwillingness to finance their local cities through numera and sumnui honoraria. Despite imperial inteivention the cities remained unable to control then own basic resources.Wittacker Dick. The politics of power : The cities of Italy. In: L'Italie d'Auguste à Dioclétien. Actes du colloque international de Rome (25-28 mars 1992) Rome : École Française de Rome, 1994. pp. 127-143. (Publications de l'École française de Rome, 198