Un popolo di pastori e contadini? Paesaggio italico e identità romana nell'opera di Varrone

The paper deals with the issue of the representation of italic Landscape in Varro’s work, focusing in particular on the ideological approach lying behind the literary motif of the laus Italiae (Varro rust. 1.3-7), that certainly had a fundamental impact on the Romans’ identitary self-representation. The longed-for return to the agro-pastoral lifestyle of the beginnings of Rome that Varro appeals to in his de re rustica, is founded on a partial and biased image of ancient Italy, where primitive and irrational spaces get gradually marginalized from the officially accepted narration.