Italy is a Roman province on the Apennine Peninsula .
In the days of the Roman Republic, Italy, which then included lands from the Rubicon to Calabria , was not considered a province, but only a territory centered in Rome , which gave it a special status. For example, military leaders did not have the right to send troops to its territory, and Caesar , having given the order to cross the Rubicon, laid the foundation for a civil war .
Initially, the word Italy did not mean the entire peninsula. According to Strabo ( Geography , Vol. 1), Italy is a section from the Strait of Messina to the line connecting the bays of Salerno and Taranto . Subsequently, Italy expanded to the entire peninsula and even the Istrian city of Pula was part of it. The formation of the province ended when Julius Caesar gave Roman citizenship to the inhabitants of Cisalpian Gaul , expanding the territory of Italy to the Alps .