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 MUNICIPALITY, a modern term (derived from Lat. municipium; see ), now used both for a city or town which is organized for self-government under a municipal corporation, and also for the governing body itself. Such a corporation in Great Britain consists of a head as a mayor or provost, and of superior members, as aldermen and councillors, together with the simple corporators, who are represented by the governing body; it acts as a person by its common seal, and has a perpetual succession, with power to hold lands subject to the restrictions of the Mortmain laws; and it can sue or be sued. Where necessary for its primary objects, every corporation has power to make by-laws and to enforce them by penalties, provided they are not unjust or unreasonable or otherwise inconsistent with the objects of the charter or other instrument of foundation.

MUNICIPIUM (Lat. munus, a duty or privilege, capere, to take), in ancient Rome, the term applied primarily to a status, a certain relation between individuals or communities and the Roman state; subsequently and in ordinary usage to a community, standing in such a relation to Rome. Whether the name signifies the taking up of burdens or the acceptance of privileges is a disputed point. But as ancient authorities are unanimous in giving munus in this connexion the sense of “duty” or “service,” it is probable that the chief feature of municipality was the performance of certain services to Rome. This view is confirmed by all that we know about the towns to which the name was applied in republican times. The status had its origin in the conferment of citizenship upon Tusculum in 381 (Livy vi. 26; cf. Cic. pro Planc. 8, 19), and was widely extended in the settlement made by Rome at the close of the Latin War in 338  (see, History). Italian towns were then divided into three classes: (1) Coloniae civium Romanorum, whose members had all the rights of citizenship; (2) municipia, which received partial citizenship; (3) foederatae civitates (including the so-called Latin colonies), which remained entirely separate from Rome, and stood in relations with her which were separately arranged by her for each state by treaty (foedus). The municipia stood in very different degrees of dependence on Rome. Some, such as Fundi (Livy viii. 14; cf. ibid. 19), enjoyed a local self-government only limited in the matter of jurisdiction; others, such as Anagnia (Livy ix. 43; Festus, de verb. significatione, s.v. “municipium,” p. 127, ed. Müller), were governed directly from Rome. But they all had certain features in common. Their citizens were called upon to pay the same dues and perform the same service in the legions as full Roman citizens, but were deprived of the chief privileges of citizenship, those of voting in the Comitia (jus suffragii) and of holding Roman magistracies (jus honorum). It would also appear from Festus (op. cit. s. v. praefectura, p. 233) that jurisdiction was entrusted in every municipium to praefecti juri dicundo sent out from Rome to represent the Praetor Urbanus. The conferment of municipality can therefore hardly have been regarded as other than an imposing of burdens, even in the case of those cities which retained control of their own affairs. But after the close of the second Punic War, when Rome had become the chief power, not only in Italy, but in all the neighbouring lands round the Mediterranean, we can trace a growing tendency among the Italian cities to regard citizenship of this great state as a privilege, and to claim complete citizenship as a reward of their services in helping to build up the Roman power. During the 2nd century the jus suffragii and jus honorum were conferred upon numerous municipia (Livy xxxviii. 36, 37), whose citizens were then enrolled in the Roman tribes. They can have exercised their public rights but seldom, owing to their distance from Rome; but the consulships of C Marius, a municeps of Arpinum (between 107 and 100 ), and the strength of the support given to Tiberius Gracchus in the assembly by the voters from Italian towns (133 ) show what an important influence the members of these municipia could occasionally exercise over Roman politics. The cities thus privileged, however, though receiving complete Roman citizenship, were not, as the logic of public law might seem to demand, incorporated in Rome, but continued to exist as independent urban units; and this anomaly survived in the municipal system which was developed, on the basis of these grants of citizenship, after the Social War. That system recognized the municeps as at once a citizen of a self-governing city community, and a member of the city of Rome, his dual capacity being illustrated by his right of voting both in the election of Roman magistrates and in the election of magistrates for his own town.

The result of the Social War which broke out in 91. (see : History) was the establishment of a new uniform municipality throughout Italy, and the obliteration of any important distinction between the three classes established after the Latin War. By the Lex Julia of 90 and the Lex Plautia Papiria of 89  every town in Italy which made application in due form received the complete citizenship. The term municipium was no longer confined to a particular class of Italian towns but was adopted as a convenient name for all urban communities of Roman citizens in Italy. The organization of a municipal system, which should regulate the governments of all these towns on a uniform basis, and define their relation to the Roman government, was probably the work of Sulla, who certainly gave great impetus to the foundation in the provinces of citizen colonies, which were the earliest municipia outside Italy, and enjoyed the same status as the Italian towns. Julius Caesar extended the sphere of the Roman municipal system by his enfranchisement of Cisalpine Gaul, and the consequent inclusion of all the towns of that region in the category of municipia. He seems also to have given a more definite organization to the municipia as a whole. But, excepting those in Cisalpine Gaul, the municipal system still embraced no towns outside Italy other than the citizen colonies. Augustus and his successors adopted the practice of granting to existing towns in the provinces either the full citizenship, or a partial civitas known as the jus Latii. This partial civitas does not seem to have been entirely replaced, as in Italy, by the grant of full privileges to the communities possessing it, and the distinction survived for some time in the provinces between coloniae, municipia juris Romani, and municipia juris Latini. But the uniform system of administration gradually adopted in all three classes rendered the distinction entirely unimportant, and the general term municipium is used of all alike. The incorporation of existing towns, hitherto non-Roman, in the uniform municipal system of the principate took place mainly in the eastern part of the Empire, where Greek civilization had long fostered urban life. In the west city communities rapidly sprang up under direct Roman influence. The development of towns of the municipal type on the sites where legions occupied permanent quarters can be traced in several of the western provinces; and it cannot be doubted that this development became the rule wherever a body of Roman subjects settled down together for any purpose and permanently occupied a region. At any rate by the end of the 1st century of the principate municipia are numerous in the western as well as the eastern half of the Empire, and the towns are everywhere centres of Roman influence.

Of the internal life of the municipia very little is known before the Empire. For the period after Julius Caesar, however, we have two important sources of information. A series of municipal laws gives us a detailed knowledge of the constitution imposed, with slight variations, on all the municipia; and a host of private inscriptions gives particulars of their social life.

The municipal constitution of the 1st century of the principate is based upon the type of government common to Greece and Rome from earliest times. The government of each town consists of magistrates, senate and assembly, and is entirely