e of Reggio and part of the provinces of Catanzaro and Vibo Valentia in southern Italy.

Nevertheless,
by his time the larger concept of Oenotria and "Italy" had become synonymous, and the name also
applied to most of Lucania as well. According to Strabo's Geographica, before the expansion of the
Roman Republic, the name was used by ancient Greeks to indicate the land between the strait of
Messina and the line connecting the gulf of Salerno and gulf of Taranto, corresponding roughly to
the current region of Calabria. The ancient Greeks gradually came to apply the name "Italia" to a
larger region[48] In addition to the "Greek Italy" in the south, historians have suggested the
existence of an "Etruscan Italy" covering variable areas of central Italy.[49]

The borders of Roman Italy, Italia, are better established. Cato's Origines, the first work of history
composed in Latin, described Italy as the entire peninsula south of the Alps.[50] According to Cato
and several Roman authors, the Alps formed the "walls of Italy".[51] In 264 BC, Roman Italy
extended from the Arno and Rubicon rivers of the centre-north to the entire south. The northern
area of Cisalpine Gaul was occupied by Rome in the 220s BC and became considered geographically
and de facto part of Italy,[52] but remained politically and de jure separated. It was legally merged
into the administrative unit of Italy in 42 BC by the triumvir Octavian as a ratification of Caesar's
unpublished acts (Acta Caesaris).[53][54][55][56][57] The islands of Sardinia, Corsica, Sicily and
Malta were added to Italy by Diocletian in 292 AD,[58] coinciding with the whole Italian geographical
region.[59] All its inhabitants were considered Italic and Roman.[60]

The Latin term Italicus was used to describe "a man of Italy" as opposed to a provincial. For example,
Pliny the Elder notably wrote in a letter Italicus es an provincialis? meaning "are you an Italian or a
provincial?".[61] The adjective italianus, from which are derived the Italian (and also French and
English) name of the Italians, is medieval and was used alternatively with Italicus during the early
modern period.[62]

After the fall of the Western Roman Empire, which was caused by the invasion of the Ostrogoths, the
Kingdom of Italy was created. After the Lombard invasions, "Italia" was retained as the name for
their kingdom, and for its successor kingdom within the Holy Roman Empire, which nominally lasted
until 1806, although it had de facto disintegrated due to factional politics pitting the empire against
the ascendant city republics in the 13th century.[63]