There is an almost unanimous consensus among scholars that the creation of the province of Samnium in the mid fourth century AD was a response of the central government to a violent earthquake that had impacted the central Apennines, devastating the towns of the Samnite area, which at the time was still part of the province of Campania. In consideration of this devastation, in the immediately following years the central government allegedly decided to detach the area hit by the earthquake from Campania and constitute it as a province to allow it to recover. This recovery was to be achieved especially through the restoration of town buildings. This imperial action, it is argued, was thus meant to improve the administration of the area affected by the seismic event, to reactivate the economic life of towns, and to restore public buildings to allow the normal functions of urban centers to be resumed. According to this view, the officials who followed one another as governors of Samnium gave precedence to certain specific categories of buildings – macella, baths, courthouses. However, when reconsidered as a whole, the literary, epigraphic and archaeological data available today do not seem to confirm the hypothesis of a catastrophic earthquake and the consequent detachment of Samnium from Campania as a political-administrative measure taken by the government to revive the area. There was indeed an earthquake here around the middle of the fourth century, as chronicles attest, but neither its impact on the area nor its consequences on the political, administrative and economic plane can be assessed. In fact, if we were to trust the epigraphic evidence and assume a connection between Fabius Maximus’ building activity and the 346 earthquake – although in the awareness that the currently available documentation is scarce and new epigraphic finds could change the scenario – we could deduce that the earthquake affected only a limited portion of the new province, with all in all minor or at least not especially serious damages to buildings. This would have been hardly cause enough for a major administrative reorganization such as the creation of the province of Samnium. The reasons that induced the central government to create this new province must hence lie elsewhere.
Si ritiene in modo pressoché unanime che la nascita della provincia del Samnium , negli anni centrali del IV secolo d.C., sia stata la risposta dell’amministrazione centrale ad un violento terremoto che nel 346 avrebbe colpito il settore centro-appenninico della penisola, devastando le città dell’area sannita, allora unita alla Campania. A fronte delle devastazioni subite, il potere centrale avrebbe deciso, negli anni immediatamente successivi, il distacco dalla Campania dell’area colpita dal sisma e la sua costituzione in provincia – il Samnium – per consentirne la ripresa mediante interventi mirati, in particolare, al recupero del patrimonio edilizio urbano. L’azione imperiale avrebbe dunque teso, migliorando la gestione amministrativa della regione investita dal sisma, a riattivare la vita economica delle città, risanando gli edifici pubblici al fine di ripristinare le regolari funzioni dei centri urbani; in tale ottica, i funzionari succedutisi nel governo del Samnium avrebbero operato dando la precedenza a particolari categorie di edifici (macella, terme, edifici giudiziari). Tuttavia, riconsiderati nel loro insieme, i dati letterari, epigrafici ed archeologici oggi disponibili non sembrano confermare questo modello di terremoto catastrofico e l’ipotesi di un distacco del Samnium dalla Campania quale misura politico-amministrativa decisa dal centro per rilanciare un area sconvolta da un evento sismico. Questo vi fu, intorno alla metà del IV secolo, come testimoniano le fonti cronachistiche, ma tanto il suo impatto sul territorio quanto le conseguenze sul piano politico, amministrativo ed economico, al momento, non sono valutabili. Anzi, se ci si deve attenere al dato epigrafico e porre in relazione l’attività edilizia di Fabio Massimo con il terremoto del 346, pur nei limiti imposti da una documentazione che potrebbe mutare con il rinvenimento di nuove iscrizioni, se ne potrebbe dedurre che il sisma abbia interessato solo una limitata porzione della nuova provincia, con danni agli edifici tutto sommato limitati o, quanto meno, non particolarmente ingenti, non giustificando un intervento di riorganizzazione amministrativa quale la creazione della provincia del Samnium. Altre, dunque, furono le ragioni che spinsero il potere centrale a creare questa nuova provincia.
La provincia del Samnium e il terremoto del 346 d.C
SORICELLI, Gianluca
2009-01-01
Abstract
There is an almost unanimous consensus among scholars that the creation of the province of Samnium in the mid fourth century AD was a response of the central government to a violent earthquake that had impacted the central Apennines, devastating the towns of the Samnite area, which at the time was still part of the province of Campania. In consideration of this devastation, in the immediately following years the central government allegedly decided to detach the area hit by the earthquake from Campania and constitute it as a province to allow it to recover. This recovery was to be achieved especially through the restoration of town buildings. This imperial action, it is argued, was thus meant to improve the administration of the area affected by the seismic event, to reactivate the economic life of towns, and to restore public buildings to allow the normal functions of urban centers to be resumed. According to this view, the officials who followed one another as governors of Samnium gave precedence to certain specific categories of buildings – macella, baths, courthouses. However, when reconsidered as a whole, the literary, epigraphic and archaeological data available today do not seem to confirm the hypothesis of a catastrophic earthquake and the consequent detachment of Samnium from Campania as a political-administrative measure taken by the government to revive the area. There was indeed an earthquake here around the middle of the fourth century, as chronicles attest, but neither its impact on the area nor its consequences on the political, administrative and economic plane can be assessed. In fact, if we were to trust the epigraphic evidence and assume a connection between Fabius Maximus’ building activity and the 346 earthquake – although in the awareness that the currently available documentation is scarce and new epigraphic finds could change the scenario – we could deduce that the earthquake affected only a limited portion of the new province, with all in all minor or at least not especially serious damages to buildings. This would have been hardly cause enough for a major administrative reorganization such as the creation of the province of Samnium. The reasons that induced the central government to create this new province must hence lie elsewhere.I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.
