Page:The Ancient City- A Study on the Religion, Laws, and Institutions of Greece and Rome.djvu/519

 CHAP. II. THE ROMAN CONQUEST. 513 the allies of Roino took up arms that they might no longci" be allies, but might become Romans. Rome, though victorious, was still constrained to grant what was demanded, and the Italians received the rights of citizenship. Thenceforth assimilated to the Romans, they could vote in the forum ; in private life they were governed by Roman laws ; their right to the soil was recognized, and the Italian lands, as well as Roman soil, could be owned by them in fee simple. Then was established the jus Itallcwn: this was the law, not of the Italian ])erson, since the Italian had become a Ro- man, but of the Italian soil, which was susceptible of ownership, just as if it had been the ager Komanus} From that time all Italy formed a single state. There still remained the provinces to enter into the Roman unity. We must make a distinction between Greece and the provinces of the west. In the west were Gaul and Spain, which, before the conquest, knew nothing of the real municipal system. The Romans attempted to create this form of government among them, either thinking it impossible to govern them otherwise, or judging that, in order gradually to assimilate them to the Italian nations, it would be necessary to make them pass over the same route which the Italians had fol- lowed. Hence it happened that the emperors who suppressed all political life at Rome, kept up the forms of municipal liberty in the provinces. Thus cities were formed in Gaul ; each had its senate, its aristocratic body, its elective magistrates ; each had even its local worship, its Genius, and its city-protecting divinity, after the manner of those in ancient Greece and an- ' Thenceforth also called res mancipi. Sec Ulpian. 33