HISTORY cont.

The construction of great highways like the Via Flaminia and the Via Salaria consolidated Roman dominance of Italy. Under Emperor Augustus, Le Marche was divided in two. The northern stretches formed part of Roman Umbria, while the south remained as Picenum. For almost a thousand years, the Roman Empire ruled great swathes of Europe, the Middle East and North Africa and Le Marche was a land of relative peace and plenty.

Then the Goths decided to come calling.

After the fall of Rome, the Le Marche too was invaded by the Goths and, after the Gothic War, became part of the Byzantine Exarchate of Ravenna with Ancona, Fano, Pesaro, Rimini and Senigallia forming the so-called Pentapolis. After that, it was briefly in the possession of the Lombards, but was then conquered by Charlemagne in the late eighth century. In the ninth to eleventh centuries the marches of Camerino, Fermo and Ancona were created which is where we got our name. The Marches were nominally part of the Papal States, but most of the territory was ruled by local lords while the major cities ruled themselves as free communes.

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