History is a blur to most people, but 3,000 years of Italian history is near impossible to believe.

Our Institute Almanac notes that Sicily was reconquered by the Romans on December 31st, AD 535.  Barbarians had been running wild over the “western” Roman Empire for over one hundred years.  That included Italy, France, Britannia, Spain, and North Africa.  But from the year AD 330 the “eastern” Roman Empire with its capital at Constantinople held on.  The Roman emperor Justinian was still Latin-speaking (not Greek) and saw an opportunity to reconquer his western domains.

All that we hold dear—a unified Italy, Western Civilization, and Roman Catholicism—were on the firing line during the period AD 400 to 1,000.  These things were products of the Italic people who over the generations managed to defeat cultures that practiced human sacrifice (Carthage), exulted the afterlife (Egypt), and suppressed humanism with religious intolerance (Judea). 

With the barbarian invasions of the West came the destruction or neglect of Roman infrastructure—aqueducts, libraries, public buildings, baths, sewers, bridges, and roads.  The tribes of Goths, Vandals, and Huns were fortunately small in number and were eventually vulnerable to fighting among themselves and assimilating with the civilized population.  Emperor Justinian struck at the right moment when he sent generals like Belisarius to reconquer Sicily, North Africa, parts of Spain, and southern Italy.

Invariably, it was a see-saw campaign that never fully ousted the barbarians.  But Constantinople’s secret weapons were Christianity and the Pope.  Barbarians were converted and even those who weren’t saw the Pope in Rome as God’s representative as well as the popular authority.  Still, the glorious Italy that was a civil engineering marvel and ruler of a vast empire fell into poverty, depopulation, and ruin.

By AD 800, new barbarians arrived, the Longobards.  They too were assimilated, bringing blond hair and blue eyes to many Italians.  Their preferred region is still called Lombardy.  In Sicily, Muslims arrived in the AD 900s but were later driven out by the French-speaking Normans.

No matter who invaded or sojourned among the Italic people, they were seduced by the Latin culture and wonders of Roman civilization.  The Latin-speaking emperors in Constantinople and the Pope in Rome made sure that neither the Greek Orthodox patriarchs nor foreign implants usurped the dominant Italic religion or culture.  Of course, there exist today pockets of Italian communities with non-Italic religious and cultural traditions, but these are scattered mostly in the Italy’s south and Sicily.

The greater evidence of two thousand years of Italy’s empire, invasion, occupation, and assimilation is in the Italian gene pool.  Few other ethnic groups can boast the extraordinary array of skills and talents of Italian people over generations—from sports to science, from engineering to the arts, from industry to cuisine—all evidence of an extensive genetic melting pot that was able to dominate commerce during the Middle Ages, ignite the Renaissance, and produce visionaries that primed the Age of Exploration.

Despite the repeated torment Italy has suffered over the millennia and the myriad peoples who have crossed its borders there remained from the days of the Caesars a spirit and unity (however much buried or denied) that allowed men like Garibaldi, Mazzini, and Cavour to resurrect a nation first unified in 222 B.C. within the space of only ten years (1861 – 1871).

It indicates a people made of sterner stuff. -JLM