Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography Volume II.djvu/106

 90 ITALIA. people, belonged all those nations that had submitted to Kome upon any other terms than those of citizen- ship; and the treaties (foedera), which determined their relations to the central power, included almost every variety, from a condition of nominal equality and independence (aequum foedus), to one of the most complete subjection. Thus we find Heraclea in Lucania, Neapolis in Campania, and the Camertes in Umbria, noticed as possessing particularly favour- able treaties (Ck. pro Balh. 8, 20, 22); and even some of the cities of Latium itself, which had not received the Roman civitas, continued to maintain this nominal independence long after they had be- come virtually subject to the power of Rome. Thus, even in the days of Polybius, a Roman citizen might retire into exile at Tibur or Praeneste (Pol. vi. 14; Liv. xliii. 2), and the poor and decayed town of I.aurentum went through the form of annually renewing its treaty with Rome down to the close of the Repubhc. (Liv. viii. 1 L) Nor was this in- dependence merely nominal : though politically de- pendent upon Rome, and compelled to fcjllow her lead in their external relations, and to furnish their con- tingent of troops for the wars, of which the dominant republic alone reaped the benefit, many of the cities of Italy continued to enjoy the absolute control of their own affairs and internal regulations; the troops which they were bound by their treaty to funiish were not enrolled with the legions, but fought under their own standards as auxiliaries ; they retained their own laws as well as courts of judicature, and, even when the Lex Julia conferred upon all the Italian allies the privileges of the Roman civitas, it was necessary that each city should adopt it by an act of its own. (Cic. pro Balb. 8.) Nearly in the same position with the dependent allies, however different in their origin, were the so-called '• Coloniae Latinae;" that is, Roman colonies which did not enjoy the rights of Roman citizenship, but stood in the same relation to the Roman state that the cities of the Latin League had formerly done. The name was, doubtless, derived from a period when these colonies were actually sent out in common by the Romans and Latins; but settlements on similar terms continued to be founded by the Romans alone, long after the extinction of the Latin League; and, before the Social War, the Latin colonies included many of the most flourishing and important towns of Italy. (For a list of them, with the dates of their foundation, see JIadvig, de. Coloniis, I. c. ; Mommsen, Rdmische Miins-Wesen, pp. 230 — 234- and Marquardt, I. c. p. 33.) These colonies are justly regarded by Livy as one of the main supports of the Republic during the Second Punic War (Liv. xxvii. 9, 10), and, doubtless, proved one of the most etfectual means of consolidating the Roman doininion in Italy. After the dissolution of the Latin League, B. c. 338, these Latin colonies (with the few cities of Latium that, like Tibur and Praeneste, still re- tained their separate organisation) formed the " no- men Latinum," or body of the Latins. The close connection of these with the allies explains the fre- quent recurrence of the phrase " socii et nomen Latinum " throughout the later books of Livy, and in other authors in reference to the same period. A great and general change in the relations pre- viously subsisting between the Italian states and Piome was introduced by the Social War (b. c. 90 — 89), and the settlement which took place in conse- quence of it. Great as were the dangers with which Eome was threatened by the formidable coalition of ITALL. those who had so long been her bravest defenders, they would have been still more alai-ming had the whole Italian people taken part in it. But the allies who then rose in arms against Rome were almost exclusively the Sabellians and their kindred races. The Etruscans and Umbrians stood aloof, while the Sabines, Latins, Volscians, and other tribes who had already received the Roman franchise, suj/ported the Republic, and furnished the materials of her armies. But the senate hastened to secure those who were wavering, as well as to disarm a portion at least of the openly disaffected, by the gift of the Roman franchise, including the full privileges of citizens : and this was subsequently extended to every one of the allies in succession as they submitted. There is some uncertainty as to the precise steps by which this was effected, but the Lex Julia, passed in the year 90 B.C., appears to have conferred the franchise upon the Latins (the " nomen Latinum," as above defined) and all the allies who were willing to accept the boon. The Lex Plautia Papiria, passed the following year, b. c. 89, completed the arrangement thus begun. (Cic. pro Balb. 8, pro- Arch. 4 ; A. Gell. iv. 4 ; Appian, B. C. i. 49 ; Veil. Pat. ii. 16.) By the change thus effected the distinction be- tween the Latins and the allies, as well as between those two classes and the Roman citizens, was entirely dune away with ; and the Latin colonies lapsed into the condition of ordinary municipia. At the same time that all the free inhabitants of Italy, as the term was then understood (i. e. Italy S. of the JIacra and Rubicon), thus received the full rights of Roman citizens, tlie same boon was granted to the inhabit- ants of Gallia Cispadana, while the Transpadani appear to have been at the same time raised to the condition and privileges of Latins, that is to say, were placed on the same footing as if all their towns had been Latin colonies. (Ascon. in Pison. p. 3, ed. Orell. ; Savigny, Vermischte Schriften, vol. iii. pp. 290—308 ; Marquardt, Handb. vol. iii. pt. i. p. 48.) This peculiar arrangement, by which the Jus Latii was revived at the very time that it became naturally extinct in the rest of Italy, is more fully explained under Gallia Cisalpina. In b. c. 49, after the outbreak of the Civil War, Caesar bestowed the full franchise upon the Transpadani also (Dion Cass. xli. 3G) ; and from this time all the free inhabitants of Italy became united under one common class as citizens of Rome. The Italians thus admitted to the franchise were all ultimately enrolled in the thirty-five Roman tribes. The principle on which this was done we know not ; but we learn that each municipium, and sometimes even a larger district, was assigned to a particular tribe : so that every citizen of Arpinum, for instance, would belong to the Cornelian tribe, of Beneventum to the Stellatine, of Brixia to the Fa- bian, of Ticinum to the Papian, and so on.* But in so doing, all regard to that geographical distribution of the tribes which was undoubtedly kept in view in their first institution was necessarily lost ; and we have not sitfficient materials for attempting to determine how the distribution was made. A know- ledge of it must, however, have been of essential importance so long as the Repubhc continued ; and sonal right, where this previously existed, so that a Roman citizen already belonging to another tribe, who settled hhnself in any municipium, retained his own tribe.
 * This did not, however, interfere with the per-