How Diverse Was Ancient Rome?

Today, we will talk about how diverse ancient Rome was, the genetic history of Rome and the whole Italian Peninsula.

I will warn you that we will heavily rely on genetic studies so that some language might go over some people’s heads. I will try to explain it as simply as I can.

How Diverse Was Ancient Rome?

To summarise, almost all genetic studies on the Italian peninsula show that most ancient Italians from the Neolithic to the modern day are genetically similar to modern Europeans except for the Imperial Period, which lasted from 27 BC- to 300 AD when migrants from the Middle East and Eastern Mediterranean moved to Rome.

Both before and after this period, however, ancient Italians resemble modern Europeans, especially Southern Europeans.

Some Points Needed to Understand Ancient European Genetics

• Anatolian farmers are a neolithic population in modern Turkey that spread to the rest of Europe in 6000 BC. These people share most similarities with modern Europeans, especially Southern Europeans.
• People called the Steppe People, and sometimes geneticists call them Yamnya pastoralists that spread across Europe around 3000 BC. They are most related to modern Northern, Central, and Eastern Europeans.
• These two populations form most of the ancestry in modern and ancient Europeans.

Although Greece is seen as the cradle of Western civilisation, ultimately, it was Rome that spread the ideas of Greece to most of the known world at that time. But the impact of Rome on Northern Europe shaped that continent and, by extension, the whole world forever. It is somewhat tempting to ask who these people were. We know about the theatres, coliseums, and the philosophies they spread. But who were the people of ancient Rome? Who were the people we now thank for some of the most important aspects of modern civilisation?

But first, we must talk about some ancient peoples and know a bit about them to understand the formation of the Romans.

Anatolian Farmers/European Farmers

The mix of European and local Anatolian hunter-gatherers produced a new ethnic group that geneticists call Anatolian farmers, contributing ancestry to all modern Europeans.

Starting around 7000 BC, They spread across Europe, replacing and interbreeding with the earlier European hunter-gatherers.

Modern Southern Europeans are the closest to ancient Anatolian and European farmers.

Southern Europeans carry roughly 40-50% of their ancestry from these Anatolian farmers. Sardinians and Basques are the two groups with the most Anatolian ancestry, with Sardinians having about 60-80% Anatolian ancestry. This is because these groups have the most Anatolian farmer ancestry.

Northern Europeans carry about 30-40% Anatolian ancestry; the rest is steppe ancestry with some European hunter-gatherer DNA.

Despite coming from modern-day Turkey, they are surprisingly more related to modern Europeans and even Slavic and Northern European peoples than Middle Eastern and other West Asian peoples.

However, during the Bronze Age, more immigration from the Caucasus and the Levant created a more Middle Eastern-like population.

Steppe ancestry is another part of all modern European ancestral gene pools.

Yamnya/Corded Ware Steppe Peoples

The steppe are nomadic peoples that originated in modern Ukraine and quickly spread across the Eurasian steppe.

These people are a mix of populations of Eastern Hunter-Gatherers in Eastern Europe and Caucasus hunter-gatherers.

The modern groups closest to these ancient people are modern Northern and Eastern European populations. These modern Northern and Eastern Europeans carry around 40-55% of their ancestry from these steppe people.

About 3000 BC, these Steppe people spread across Europe and even parts of the Middle East and India.

This PCA is from a paper about Etruscans that we will discuss later. It shows Anatolian Neolithic and Steppe Bronze Age populations.

All modern Europeans, represented by the grey dots on the left, fall between these two populations. Most modern Europeans carry ancestry from these Anatolian and Steppe peoples.

Early Days of Ancient Italy

I want to cover the early days of Italy before the Romans. This will give us an excellent base to start from.

The early Bronze Age Romans and Italians clustered with modern southern Europeans like Albaininas, Sardinians, and Italians, to name just a few. Most of their ancestry comes from the indigenous people and incoming migrants from Northern Europe known as steppe pastoralists.

How Diverse Was The Ancient North, Central, And Southern Italians

Below is a PCA (Principal Component Analysis). The ancient samples are projected onto modern samples to compare ancient peoples with modern peoples. The group circled at the top labelled Post-Neolithic cluster is the Bronze Age Italian people we are discussing.

These samples come from northern and central Italy—the arrival of steppe-related ancestry in north and central Italy by 1600 BC.

The cluster underneath, where the cluster is circled in blue, represents the Earlier inhabitants dated to the chalcolithic and during the early Bronze Age, dated to 3300 BC.

Another study, The Genetic Origin of Daunians and the Pan-Mediterranean Southern Italian Iron Age Context analyses samples from the Daunians, an Iron Age population in Apulia in southern Italy. The samples are dated 1157 BC and 275 BC.

Once again, the Danuians of Iron Age Southern Italy clustered with modern southern Europeans, especially southern Italians and Sardinians.

How Diverse Were The Ancient Sicilians

A paper called The Arrival of Steppe and Iranian-Related Ancestry in the Islands of the Western Mediterranean Also demonstrates that most early and late Bronze Age Sicilians carry mainly Anatolian and Steppe ancestry and cluster with modern southern Europeans.

Another paper titled The Diverse Genetic Origins of a Classical Period Greek Army analyses 54 ancient samples dated to 480 BC from the Greek soldiers and civilians from the Sicilian colony of Himera, showing that all ancient Sicilian civilians called Sicani by the Greeks cluster with Bronze Age Sicilians. They also share more affinity with modern southern Europeans.

However, the study’s authors say they can model them as having at least part of their ancestry from Iberia. But the authors are not sure. What is certain is that at least most of their ancestry is native.

Greek Authors on The Origins of The Sicilians

This genetic finding is interesting because some Greek authors thought they came from Iberia and were not native.

Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War, Chapter 2

“After them, the first that appear to have dwelt therein are the Sicanians, as they say, themselves, nay, before the other, as being the natural breed of the island. But the truth is, they were Iberians and driven away by the Ligyans from the banks of Sicanus, a river on which they were seated in Iberia. And the island from them came to be called Sicania, which was before Trinacria.”

Diodorus Siculus claims that the Sicania came from Italy instead.

Diodorus Siculus Book 5.2.2

“The island in ancient times was called, after its shape, Trinacria, then Sicania after the Sicani who made their home there, and finally, it has been given the name Sicily after the Siceli who crossed over in a body to it from Italy.”

He is supported by

Pausanias, Description of Greece 5.25.6

“Sicanians, Sicels, and Phrygians; the first two crossed it from Italy.”

However, the genetic evidence mainly supports what the native Sicilians said about themselves.

While there is no study to confirm or deny it, I am sure that we will see the genetic shift towards the Eastern Mediterranean and the Middle East during the Imperial Period in Sicily.

Greek Army in Himera

A side note: In the Battle of Himera, the Greek army hired many mercenaries during this battle. Interestingly, the DNA shows that these mercenaries came from everywhere, including the Steppe, Lithuania, possibly other Baltic populations, and the Caucasus.

Some Greek soldiers intermarried with Siclians, while others clustered with other ancient Greeks and Bronze Age Greek Mycenaeans. The ancient Greek populations also share more affinity to European and primarily Southern European populations than other populations in Eurasia. But the genetic history of the ancient Greeks can be for another time.

How Diverse Were The Ancient Etruscans

Etruscans were an essential part of Roman and ancient Italian culture. Most of what people think is Roman came from the Etruscans. There is a great deal of disagreement about the origins of the Etruscans.

Ancient Authors on The Origins of The Etruscans

There was some disagreement on the origins of the Etruscans, even in ancient times.

Dionysius of Halicarnassus Book I, Section 30

“Indeed, those probably come nearest to the truth who declare that the nation migrated from nowhere else but was native to the country since it is found to be a very ancient nation and to agree with no other either in its language or in its manner of living.”

However, in his Histories 1.94, Herodotus states that the Etruscans came from Anatolia.

“This is their story: […] their king divided the people into two groups and made them draw lots so that the one group should remain and the other leave the country; he himself was to be the head of those who drew the lot to remain there, and his son, whose name was Tyrrhenus, of those who departed. […] They came to the Ombrici, where they founded cities and have lived ever since. They no longer called themselves Lydians, but Tyrrhenians, after the name of the king’s son who had led them there.”

Different Greek authors debated their origins, a debate that continues to this day. However, now we have genetic studies to put this question to bed.

Genetic Studies on Etruscans

There is a genetic paper discussing the origins of the Etruscans as well, so let us look.

I won’t write it all again, but the story is the same as in the Roman paper I will cover next. Primarily European, except during the Imperial Period, when the Etruscan population shifts towards the Near East and Eastern Mediterranean. The immigration seems to be a little less than in Rome but still substantial.

As you can see, the sample under the label Roman Empire shifts towards Greek, southern Italians, Cypriots (Eastern Mediterranean) and some Middle Eastern groups.

In contrast, the samples are labelled as Iron Age clusters with Europeans.

The pink square labelled C. Italy_Imperial shifts towards the Eastern Mediterranean towards Greeks and southern Italians.

Some light blue samples labelled Rome also cluster around Eastern Mediterranean samples. Some also cluster with Anatolians and Levantine people.

Another image from the same paper only shows Etruscan samples.

The study in the next section below also looks at Etruscan DNA with similar results.

How Diverse Was The Ancient City of Rome?

Now, let us talk about the paper directly studying ancient Roman samples from Rome.

The paper covers the Mesolithic to the Medieval period. We will only discuss the samples that relate to ancient Rome, but you can follow the link to the entire study.

The study we are discussing is Ancient Rome: A Genetic Crossroads of Europe and the Mediterranean.

This image is broken down into two sections:

The section at the top section, titled “Haplotype sharing between modern and ancient individuals”, shows a heat map where each block represents one sample from a modern (y-axis) and ancient (x-axis) population.

The darker the block, the closer the population is to whatever it is being compared to. For example, look at the pink bar labelled C2 Sardinia/Neolithic, and you will find that the darkest block and the most related modern population are Sardinians.

The second section clusters ancient samples labelled C1 through to C7. These samples are projected onto modern samples. The closer they are, the more they genetically resemble each other.

To summarize, this somewhat overwhelming amount of information is saying:

Mesolithic Populations (10,000 BC)

The Mesolithic Italian cluster with other Mesolithic Europeans. While no European Mesolithic population exists today, their closest relatives are modern, Northern and Baltic Europeans, who carry most of this Mesolithic ancestry.

Neolithic And Copper Age Populprehistoric0 BC- 2300 BC

Neolithic and Copper Age Italians cluster with southern Europeans and especially Sardinians.

BronzprehistoricC- 1100 BC

Even more like Modern Europeans with the arrival of Steppe ancestry from Northern Europe.

Iron Age

Samples taken from before and during the foundation of Rome show that once they age, they cluster with modern Europeans. However, some samples carry Middle Eastern and North African ancestry, probably because of trade contacts and conflicts with the Punic people during the First and Second Punic Wars. One individual has as much as 53% North African ancestry.

The paper states, “In contrast to prehistoric individuals, the Iron Age individuals genetically resemble modern European and Mediterranean individuals and display diverse ancestries as central Italy becomes increasingly connected to distant communities through new networks of trade, colonization, and conflict.”

I want to point out that although the paper says, “In contrast to prehistoric individuals, the Iron Age individuals genetically resemble modern European and Mediterranean individuals”, all pre-historic populations of Europe still cluster closer to Europeans than any other population alive today. So, in my opinion, it is a little deceiving to say that.

I want to write about ancient European DNA topics in a separate article because this can be misleading to anyone new to genetic studies.

Imperial Period

During the Imperial period, the gene pool of Rome’s population shifted towards the Eastern Mediterranean, the Near East, and North Africa. The empire had the most territory at this point in Roman history. It is probably due to mass immigration, enslaved people, and trade into Rome. Interestingly, not much immigration comes from Northern Europe. This period shows that ancient Rome was ethnically diverse at this point.

Fall of Rome

This Eastern shift in genetic ancestry only happens briefly, as by the fall of Rome, its ancestry had shifted back towards Central Europe. The movement of the capital to Constantinople was probably a factor in this shift as less immigration and the drastic fall of Rome’s population to 100,000 meant that even a small amount of immigration from the incoming Northan tribes that entered Italy would make a massive impact on the gene pool.

Medieval Period

By the Medieval period, Rome’s people had fully been transformed back into a European population again. Only during the Imperial Period did Rome’s population have significant non-European ancestry.

This image sums up what I have been saying.

Europe

We will look at two studies titled A Genetic History of The Balkans From Roman Frontier to Slavic Migrations and Ancient DNA reveals the origins of the Albanians. Both find that the shift towards the Eastern Mediterranean and Middle East mainly came from Anatolia and the Levant. There was even one sample clustered with East Africans.

All these studies show that despite mass migration from most of the Roman Empire, not much came from any Sub-Saharan nations.

Like the previous studies, all ancient Balkan samples cluster with Europeans, but there was a shift to the Middle East during the Imperial period. But to a lesser extent. However, the Blakan population shifted to Central and Slavic Europeans after the Imperial period.

While massive, this genetic shift was not as big as in Italy. Between 250 AD and 550 AD, migrants from Central and Northern Europe and the Steppe came down.

The Iron Age Steppe people are different from the Bronze Age Steppe people we have been mentioning throughout. These Iron Age Steppe people carry varying amounts of Iranian and East Asian ancestry, especially in the later Iron Age.

Northern Europe

Interestingly, this eastern shift did not happen in England, and I am assuming the rest of Northern Europe as the population in the Iron Age and during and after the Roman occupation shows little to no difference, probably due to the dilution of the ancestry when the Romans left Europe. The Anglo-Saxon invasion made a difference in England’s gene pool.

Genetic signals of migration and continuity in Britain before the Anglo-Saxons.

So, How diverse was ancient Rome? Well, it depends on the period you pick. During the Imperial Period, There was a lot of migration from North Africa and the Middle East, but during the Iron Age, it was limited.

Besides the Imperial Period and a little migration during the Iron Age, most immigration came from Europe before and after the Imperial Period.

It would seem that the massive Eastern shift, as I call it, happened throughout the Roman Empire. But not so much in Northern Europe. This might be because there was not much reason to go to Northern Europe then. Most of the migrants probably left or were absorbed into the larger native population after the fall of the Roman Empire.

Thanks for reading. Hopefully, you were able to follow along. It is a bit overwhelming.

And let us know what you think of how diverse ancient Rome was. I love the new Science of genetic studies as it cuts through all the political and fantastical theories.

I know this can be a touchy topic, so please keep your comments polite and on topic.