Mediolanum

Mediolanum, the ancient Milan, was originally an Insubrian city, but afterwards became an important Roman city in northern Italy. This article charts the history of the city from its settlement by the Insubres around 600 BC, through its conquest by the Romans and its development into a key centre of Western Christianity and capital of the Western Roman Empire, until its decline under the ravages of the Gothic War, its capture by the Lombards in 569, and their decision to make Ticinum the capital of their Kingdom of Italy.

During the Principate 200 AD the population was 40,000; when the city became capital of the Western Roman Empire from emperor Maximian (286-305) on the population rose to 100,000 people and thus Milan became one of the largest cities in Roman Italy.

Mediolanum appears to have been founded around 600 BC by the Celtic Insubres, after whom this region of northern Italy was called Insubria. According to the legend reported by Livy, the Gaulish king Ambicatus sent his nephew Bellovesus into northern Italy at the head of a party drawn from various Gaulish tribes; this Bellovesus was said to have founded Mediolanum (in the time of Tarquinius Priscus, according to this legend). The Romans, led by consul Gnaeus Cornelius Scipio Calvus, fought the Insubres and captured the city in 222 BC; the chief of the Insubres submitted to Rome, giving the Romans control of the city. They eventually conquered the entirety of the region, calling the new province Cisalpine Gaul— "Gaul this side of the Alps"— and may have given the site its Latinized Celtic name: in Gaulish *medio- meant "middle, center" and the name element -lanon is the Celtic equivalent of Latin -planum "plain", thus *Mediolanon (Latinized as Mediolanum) meant "(settlement) in the midst of the plain".

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