Baines/Disappearance of Writing Systems, 5. Script Obsolescence in Ancient Italy

The disappearance of the indigenous writing systems of pre-Roman Italy is inextricably bound up with the Roman conquest of the peninsula in the fourth and third centuries BC, and the so-called ‘Romanization’ of Italy—the postconquest process of acculturation. Their demise cannot, however, be explained as a process of collapse resulting from the active suppression of indigenous cultures, but was the result of a far more complex and long-term interaction between competing cultures of writing, and of evolution within those cultures. It must also be examined in terms of the socio-political power relations between Rome and the rest of Italy and the ways in which these changed and developed between the third century BC and early first century AD. The disappearance of indigenous scripts and associated changes in the wider culture of writing is a valuable indicator of changes in elite culture and perceptions of group identity.