Page:Municipal Administration in the Roman Empire (1926, Abbot and Johnson, municipaladminis00abbo).pdf/29

 the castella were naturally on the frontiers. Some of the vici and castella were in time made independent communities. This happened, for instance, in the case of Sufes, and occasionally a civitas was reduced to the position of a dependent vicus. An interesting instance of this sort is furnished by the petition of the people of Orcistus. In a few cases we find the name vicus canabarum applied to a community, but settlements of this sort do not seem to have differed from canabae, which come next in the order of discussion.

This word in its general sense was applied to the temporary shops and booths put up by merchants. It was natural to use it also of the settlements of merchants and camp-followers which sprang up about the camps. They were usually located so as to leave a free space between the fortifications of the camp and the hamlet in question. The organization was based on the resident Roman citizens, and, with its magisteri or curatores, probably bore a close resemblance to the conventus civium Romanorum, of which we have a reasonably complete record. Probably the native women by whom the soldiers in the camp had children lived in these nearby villages, so that it was natural for the veterans on receiving their discharge and the legalization of their marriages to settle in the canabae with their wives and children. To them we have reference in an inscription from Aquincum and elsewhere. In the history of the Roman municipality the canabae have a special interest for us, because we can,