Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography Volume I Part 2.djvu/204

 GALLIA CIS» were Sodi of Uie Romans, and carried off many IhoiuandB into slavery. The oonsnl $lled his|nckets by selling his prisoners. He was no better than a barbaitHu African chief, who catches men, and sells them to the white man of Europe or America. A like instance of f^ross injustice occorred at a later time (b. a 44), when D. Bmtas, then governor of Cisalpine Gallia, led his men against the people in tJie Alps (Inalpini), to please his soldiers, and secore their fidelity. (Cic ad Fam, zi. 4.) The senate declared their willingness to hear the evidence against Cassins, when he retnmed from Macedonia, where he then was. Bnt in the mean time they got rid of their troublesome complainants by hand- some presents, and allowing them to porchase ten horses and take them out of Italy. (Liv. xliiL 7.) The peace of Cisalpine Gallia was not disturbed again, except in B.C. 101, when the Cimbri came over the Eastern Alps, and crossed the Adige. They were defeated by Marias and Catulns in Uie great battle near Veroellae. Gallia Cisalpina remained quiet daring the Social War, and it was probably to reward the people for their fidelity that the consul Cn. Pompeios was em- powered, B. c. 89, by a I^x Pompeia to give the political coodition called Jus Latii or Latinitas to the towns north of the Pa Asoonius, who is the aathority for this, does not say that the Latinitas was given to all the towns north of the Po; but it is pmbable that it was. He remarks that Pompeius did not estabUith new colonies, but gave this Jus lAtii to the towns which existed. The Latinitas placed the Transpadani in a middle position between Rumani Gives and Peregrini, for those who had filled a magistratus in the towns that had the Latinitss acquired thereby the Roman dvitas. This new Latinitas or Jos Latii is a different thing from the former condition of the towns of Latium and the Latinae odoniae. The Roman colonies (coloniae dvioxn Romanorum) consisted only of Roman dti- ».*ns, and they were Roman communities. Latinae coloniae might be composed either of Roman dtizens or of Latini ; but a Ronwn dtizen who jdned a Latina oolonia in order to get a house and land, lout bis dvitas ; and these Latinae coloniae were viewed as Latin communities. The Lex Julia, B. a 90, after the Social War bad broken oat, gave the Roman dvitas to all the Nomen Latinom, that is, to all such towns of Latium as were not already municipia or coloniae ; and to all the Latin colonies in Italy. Thus all the Latinae coloniae became munidpia; and when it is said that the Latinitas or Jos Latii Wiis given by Cn. Pompeius to the Trans- padani, it means to those towns which were not Latinae coloniae. The new political condition of these Truispadani was expressed by this term Latinitas or Jua Latii ; and accordingly the word Latini now recdved a new signification, designating A class of people in a certain legal condition, and liaving no reference to a particular country and people. It is not stated by any andent authority what was done with the inhabitants of Gallia south of the Po, when the Transpadani received the Latinitas ; bat we cannot refuse to accept Savigny's conjecture, which he supports by the strongest arguments, that they recdved the Roinan ci vitas ; and it may be, as he supposes, by virtue of the same Lex Pompeia. It appears from Cicero (ad AtL i. 1, b. c. 65), that Gallia, which means all Cisalpine Gallia, had great iofluflnoe over the elections at Rome by their I VOL. I. GALLL/l CIS. 945 votes; and therefore a large part of Gallia had the civitas at this time, and it must have been given either in b. c. 89, or between d. o. 89 and b. c 65. Bnt there occurred no occasion between tlicse two dates for giving new political rights to Cisalpine Gallia, so far as we know ; and there was a good reason for giving them after the close of the Social War. The conclusion, then, of Savigny is this: *' In b. c. 89 the towns of the Cispadan regions became Roman munidpia, and the Transpadani became Latinae coloniae. We must except Placentia, Cre- mona, and Bononia, which, bdng dd Latinae coloniae, were changed into municipia by the Lex Julia (b. c. 90) ; also Mntina and Parma, which, being old Roman coloniae, underwent no change in thdr c<»iditiun ; we must also except Eporedia in Gallia Transpadana, which must have bdongcd to the one or the other of these two classes, fijr we do not know whether it was a Roman or a Latin colonia." This explains why Mutina is called by Cicero {Phil, T. 9) a colonia. It was in its origin a cdonia, and might always be called so ; but in Cicero's time it was a Roman town, and a municipium in the 8en<«e of that period. Cicero also calls Placentia a muni- dpium, and he calls it so correctly, for such it was in his time ; but it was originally a Latina colonia. There is a passage of Suetonius (Coes. c. 8) in which he says that Caesar, when he was quaestor in Spain (b. c. 66), left it sooner than he ought to have dime, in order to visit the Latinae coloniae, who were agitating about the dvitas. This is explained by Savigny to refer to the Transpadani. In the following year (Dion Cass, xxxvii. 9) the censors could not agree whether they should admit the Transpadani as dves or not ; which is anotho: proof that the people south of the Po had the civitas. It was again talked of in b. c. 51, as we infer from the letters of Cicero (ad AtL v. 2, ad Fam. viii. 1), when they are rightly exphiined. Finally, in b. c. 49, Caesar, after crossing the Rubicon, gave the Transpadani the dvitas. (Dion Cass. xli. 36.) Thus the towns of the Transpadani became muni* dpia, except Cremona, Aquileia, and Eporedia^ which were already munidpia by virtue of the Lex Julia. When it- is said that the towns of Gallia Cisalpina became municipia, we must understand this of coarse only of the larger towns: the smaller places were attached to the hirge towns, and de- pended on them. During Caesar's government of Gallia Cisalpina he added a body of colonists, some of whom were Greeks, to the inhabitants of Comum, and put them on the same footing as the former in- habitants. (Strab. p. 212.) Appian (A C. ii. 26), states that Caesar established Novum Comum, and gave it the Latinitas ; and he shows that he under- stood wliat he was speaking about, fur he says, became Roman dtizens, for this is the effiMit of the Latmitas." Caesar's enemies at Rome took a mali- dous pleasure in treating a magistrate of Comimi as if he were not a Roman citizoi, intending by this to insult Caesar. Suetonius (Cau, c 28) says that it was by virtue of a Rogatio Vatinia that Caesar gave the civitas to the people of Comum. He may be mistaken about the dvitas, but Caesar no doubt acted under some lex. ' The limit of Gallia Cisalpina on the south-cast, during Caesar's proconsulate, was the Rubico ; and it was this drcumstance that made his crossing the river with his troops into Italy equivalent to treason against the state. The boundary on the west side 3p
 * ' Those who discharged an annual magistracy there