MEDDIX TUTICUS
MEDDIX TUTICUS (= “community manager” ) was the
chief magistrate among Oscan or Sabellian communities. Hence we find the
title at Capua after the Samnites wrested the dominion of that city from the
Greeks. The word appears as Medix in the MSS. of
Liv.
23.35, varied by Maedix 24.19 and Media 26.6. The double
consonant, however, appears in Festus and in most inscriptions, as meddies,
μεδδειξ, metdiss. Mommsen
(
Unterit. Dial. p. 278) considers that the first syllable
is naturally short (as evidenced by the Greek
ε), and derives it from the same root as
mederi: Curtius suggests, but on the whole rejects,
μέδω, to which however there would be no
objection if there is merely a doubled
d. It was
clearly the Oscan name for a
magistrate who
might be alone in office or one of many. So Ennius gives us “Summus
ibi capitur meddix occiditur alter,” but that does not prove that
the title Meddix belongs only or specially to a dual magistracy. The
inscriptions give us two meddices at Messana (Mommsen,
l.c.), but in most Sabellian communities, as far as we can gather,
there was only one: possibly, as Mommsen (
Staatsrecht, 3.581)
suggests, the dual constitution at Messana was owing to Roman influence. We
have the qualifying word
Tuticus added at Capua (Livy), at
Pompeii, Herculaneum, and Bovianum (see the inscriptions cited by Mommsen),
and this word is probably connected with Umbrian and Oscan words for town,
tauta, tota, touta (Curtius,
Gr.
Etym. p. 225): so that the title means chief magistrate of the town,
and seems to imply that the word meddix alone might be used of other
magistrates. We have no means of ascertaining the precise limits of his
jurisdiction, which, moreover, may have varied in different towns, but a
good deal may be gathered from the accounts of Capua preserved in Livy. This
town became subject to Rome B.C. 329 with
caerite
rights, i.e.
civitas sine suffragio (
Liv. 8.14), and consequently had not autonomy, but
kept its own senate and magistrates (see Mommsen,
Hist. of
Rome, 1.369;
Staatsrecht, 3.581), perhaps with some
coordinate jurisdiction of Roman officials. We learn from Livy that the
meddix was annually elected, as
summus magistratus
Campanis, and, like sole periodical magistrates in more modern
and larger states, had the reproach of seeking by all means the popular
vote; he summoned the senate, presided at religious rites, and (during the
revolt) appointed commanders of troops and acted himself as general
(probably one of his original functions): the office ceased with the Second
Punic War. (
Liv. 23.4;
24.19;
26.6. See also Mommsen,
Hist. of Rome, 1.255;
Staatsrecht, 3.581,
and index;
Unterital. Dialecte, p. 277 f.; Marquardt,
Staatsverwalt. 1.30 ff.)
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