Ancestor City Of Venice Discovered By Satellite Imaging

BEFORE VENICE

The birth of Venice is a consequence of the fall of the Western Roman Empire.

From the 4th C the Roman Empire was to be divided into two parts, each part governed by its Emperor. Rome was the capital of the Western Empire and Constantinople that of the Eastern. Constantinople had been founded in 330 by the Emperor Constantine I on the site of an old Greek town, Byzantium, which he renamed after himself.

The fall of the Western Roman Empire was ultimately caused by invaders from the North and East. This is the time of massive invasions of barbaric people: the Visigoth, the Huns - led by Attila, " the scourge of God” - the Goths, and others. The last of the Western Roman Emperors was deposed in 476.

During this violent incursions Roman citizens fled from the mainland and sought shelter on the tidal islands of the lagoons. Tradition wants to identify the birth of Venice with these migrations, but this is not correct. Many of these earlier refugees in fact returned to their devastated homes once the immediate danger was over.

Moreover, in 555 the Emperor Justinian the Great completed the re-conquest of Italy and these lagoons were re-placed under Byzantine jurisdiction.

It's actually in the 6th and 7th cs (568 e 639) that things were to change.

At that time another Germanic people, the Lombards, thundered down from the North and occupied a large part of the Italian territory. That of the Lombards was not a simple raid. They were actually determined to settle down in those territories and in fact they will gain their end and remain for about two centuries.

As a result, the temporary character of those early migrations changed to become permanent, their intrusion causing the alteration of the social structure described by Cassiodorus.