CHAPTER I
COLONIAE AND MUNICIPIA[1]
LONG before the republic came to an end Rome had placed the different communities which had been brought under her control in five or six well defined categories, according to their political status. But these distinctions do not hold for the earliest settlements of acquisitions of territory outside the physical limits of the city. The little market-towns which sprang up in early days on Roman territory had no separate political existence, and those who lived in them enjoyed no political rights or privileges because of their residence in them. Even Ostia had no local magistrates at the outset[2] It was a part of the city-state of Rome. In other words Rome did not recognize the possibility of local self-government in any community dependent upon her or under her suzerainty.
This policy was violated when Rome took certain communities under her control, but allowed them to retain some part of their previous sovereignty. She adopted the new practice for the first time, according to tradition, in the case of Antium, whose people were made up partly of Roman colonists and partly of earlier settlers[3]. Livy tells
- ↑ The early chapters of this Introduction are intended to present in outline the characteristic features of the different classes of municipalities under the Roman government, and to observe the changes in the political status of these towns or in the method of founding them which we notice in passing from one period to another, or form one part of the Romane world to another. It should be observed, however, that no description can be given which will be applicable to all the members of a class, because they did not all enjoy identical rights and privileges. Some of the differences between towns of the same class in the matter of autonomy will be discussed in the commentaries on the several inscriptions.
- ↑ Cf. Mommsen, St. R. 3, 755.
- ↑ Mommsen, St. R. 3, 778; Kornemann, R.E. 4, 585.
