Page:Municipal Administration in the Roman Empire (1926, Abbot and Johnson, municipaladminis00abbo).pdf/31

 of their magistri and their decrees. In most cases probably the decrees were passed in popular assemblies, but in one case at least, we hear of the decurians of a canton. In later days the pagi must have lost largely their rights of self-government, because after Diocletian's time we hear frequently of the praefecti or praepositi pagorum.

A larger rural unit than the pagus was the gens or populus. In Spain and Gaul, for instance, the Romans found it convenient to deal with the tribal organizations, and to accept the division of these tribes into the traditionally accepted smaller cantons. The Helvetii, for example, were divided into four cantons in Caesar's time A judicial prefect was put in charge of a tribe or group of cantons. Thus we hear of a ''praef. gentis Cinithiorum and a praefectus civitatium in Alpibus Maritumis''. In these cases Rome dealt with a whole people, not with single cities. Each tribe, however, had one or more villages, which were made centres of administration. If these grew in importance, they might develop into autonomous cities, and receive Latin or Roman rights as the principal village of the Vocontii did.

At the bottom of the scale, so far as the enjoyment of self-government was concerned, were the coloni on large private and imperial estates. Our information about the political and economic organization of these estates in the West comes almost entirely from inscriptions found during the last forty years. All but one of these docu-