COLONIAE AND MUNICIPIA
Roman colonies in Mutina, Parma, and Saturnia. A change in the motives which led to the founding of colonies appears under the Gracchi, who used colonization for the purpose of relieving the needy population of Rome, of promoting the prosperity of the country districts, and of stimulating trade. The admission of the proletariat to the army by Marius naturally led him to found colonies for needy veterans. A step which looked to this change in policy had been taken as early as 171 B.C. in the case of Carteia in Spain, which was settled by the sons born of Roman soldiers and Spanish women. The precedent thus set at Carteia, and taken up by Marius, of providing for veterans in colonies, was freely followed by the triumvirs and under the empire.
Narbo Martius, established in Gallia Narbonensis in 118 B.C., is the first clear instance of a colony outside the peninsula of Italy, a precedent which was not fully accepted until we come to time of Caesar and the triumvirs, under whom between forty and fifty such settlements were made in the provinces[1]. under the empire this policy was gradually discontinued. From the time of Hadrian almost all new colonies in the provinces were not newly established settlements, but existing municipia or native civitates to which the title and rights of a colony were given by the emperor. This change in status was usually in the provinces the first step towards acquisition of Latin rights and of the immunity from the payment of tribute[2].
The change which the republican system of nomenclature underwent under the dictators of the first century B.C. is significant of a change in the seat of power. The earliest instance of the new practice of naming a colony in honor of its autocratic founder is probably that of the colonia Mariana. The practice became the accepted one under the
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