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COLO´NIA

COLO´NIA


1. Greek.

The Greek colonies, according to Wachsmuth (Hell. Alterth. 1.99, 100), may be divided into three classes: (1) those settlements founded by whole races, such as the [p. 1.473]Aeolian, Ionian, and Dorian colonisation of the islands of the Aegean Sea and of the coast of Asia Minor; (2) city-colonies founded by cities, which comprise the trading factories which afterwards became cities; (3) cleruchies. With the first we are little concerned, for they are rather migrations of races than foundations of colonies; they did not start as a small section from a larger unity at home, but were rather parts of the great inner movement of the Greek races in early times. Besides, it is not to them that our thoughts turn when we speak of the Greek colonies. We think rather of the second class, and it is of these that we shall especially treat here. But a full historical account of all the separate colonies would be beyond the scope of the present article; for this the reader is referred to Hermann, Staatsalterthümer, § § 73-90. We shall be able here only to tell generally what were the different kinds of colonies, the main causes of their foundation, the principles and method according to which they were established, their internal relations and development, and the position in which they stood to the mother-country.


1. The different kinds of Colonies.

“A colony,” says Sir G. C. Lewis (On the Government of Dependencies, p. 170), “properly denotes a body of persons belonging [mainly] to one country and political community, who, having abandoned that country and community [hence ἀποικία], form a new and separate society, independent or dependent, in some district which is wholly or nearly uninhabited, or from which they expel the ancient inhabitants.” There are various kinds :--(1) Colonies of Conquest, such as Alexander's various colonies in the East. There are none that are distinctly of this class in early Greek times. A subdivision of this class are Military Colonies, such as were to a great extent the colonies planted by Pericles in Thrace and the cleruchies. (2) Agricultural Colonies, from which alone a nation springs up. The colonies of Magna Graecia and Sicily are the best examples; the vast wealth of the latter island in agricultural produce, the home of Ceres and Proserpina, is known to all. One subdivision of this class is the Pastoral Colony, like the Greeks in the interior of the Cyrenaica (Ath. 1.27; Grote, 3.449, new ed. 1869), or the Dutch in the Cape Colony. Another subdivision is the Plantation Colony, of which we have one example in Greek history, viz. that of Cyrene, the cultivation of whose silphium reminds one of the modern sugar plantations, even to the fact that the labour was performed by negro slaves (Roscher, Kolonien, Kolonialpolitik und Auswanderung, p. 26, ed. 3). (3) Commercial Colonies. Nearly all colonies, says Roscher (op. cit. p. 16), begin as commercial colonies, whatever may be the character they afterwards assume. They start from factories, established generally in countries where there are either great natural difficulties to contend against, or great restrictions on trade, like Naucratis in Egypt or the modern colonies in China. (For a full account of the interesting colony of Naucratis, see Quarterly Review, Jan. 1887, pp. 66-96.) In such colonies the colonists generally stand to the natives in the position of metics, and are bound closely together in well-disciplined corporations, for mutual protection. Such factories, a little more fully developed, become commercial colonies. Examples are the Phoenician colonies in Spain (the America of the ancients), and the Greek colonies on the Pontus, with their large trade in hides, flax, corn, wood, slaves, and fish (Curtius, Hist. of Greece, 1.415, Eng. trans.). The Pontic colonies deserve especial notice. The great era of colonisation inaugurated especially by Miletus and Chalcis, during the eighth century B.C., was systematically carried on as a state concern by each city. Miletus and Chalcis had the two great requirements for the foundation of commercial colonies, viz. naval supremacy and a vast amount of capital. Particular commercial routes and grooves of navigation came to be formed: thus merchants for the Pontus always started from Miletus, and for Massilia from Phocaea, as Curtius (p. 411) points out, from whom we can best derive a knowledge of the way in which a commercial colony arose: “At first temporary fairs on the coast were held; then places on the opposite shore were purchased by treaty from the inhabitants; fixed market-places with storehouses were erected, and agents of the mercantile houses established in them, who superintended the landing and sale of the goods. . . . Some of these stations were subsequently relinquished. Others, the situation of which proved favourable on account of mercantile advantages, or the excellence of climate or water, were kept up and enlarged: finally, a depôt of wares grew into an independent trading-place, a Hellenic community, and an antitype of the mother-city.” The colonising of the Pontus by Miletus was a most thoroughgoing work. Not only did the colonies trade with their immediate neighbours, especially with the Scythians, who showed a great adaptability to Greek culture, but several of the colonies--such as Olbia, Tanais, and Dioscurias--were the starting-points of caravan routes towards Central Russia, Siberia, and India (Curtius, op. cit. 1.421). And colonies themselves are readily induced to found new colonies. Sinope, itself a colony of Miletus, was the starting-point of much of the colonisation of the south coast of the Pontus, and by the middle of the eighth century she had founded Trapezus. As might be expected, the commercial colonies, to which class by far the greatest number of the Greek colonies belonged, were all founded on or near the sea: hence the remark of Cicero (Rep. 2.4, 9) that they were like a Grecian border, woven on to the lands of the barbarians ( “barbarorum agris quasi attexta quaedam videtur ora esse Graeciae” ).


2. Causes of Colonisation among the Greeks.

Passing over cases in which a whole state leaves its home before a conqueror,--as when the inhabitants of Teos, conquered by Harpagus, sailed away and founded Abdera (Hdt. 1.168); or when, in consequence of civil dissensions, one party emigrates in anger (for such really found new states, and have no link whatever with their mother-city),--we may yet fairly ascribe the name of colony to those settlements founded in consequence of internal dissensions, in which the state superintended the sending out of the colony, and the colonists parted in a measure as friends from the metropolis. (An instance is the founding of Tarentum by the Parthenn, directed by Sparta; Grote, 3.384.) Such [p. 1.474]would come under Servius's definition (ad Aen. 1.12) of a colony which requires that it should be sent out ex consensu publico. A very fruitful cause of colonisation was over-population, and the consequent poverty and unevenness of wealth which arise in such a community. Then the wealthy and the upper classes urged the poor to emigrate, and the latter generally were willing enough to do so, impelled by hope of better fortunes and love of adventure. A more extensive cause was a desire to push commerce, especially in the case of rich communities, as we have already shown. We cannot say that any of the Greek colonies were founded, like the New England colonies, by high-souled men flying before religious persecution. Sometimes religion seems to have had an influence in colonisation, as when the god used to order that a tenth of the inhabitants should leave the country and found a colony, as in the case of Rhegium: this was, however, due to over-population and bad seasons (Strabo, 6.1, 6, init.). A good summary of the causes of colonisation is to be found in Seneca, Cons. ad Helviam, 7, 4. Roscher (op. cit. p. 43) says that the main causes refer to the four great elements of human life,--family (over-population), property (commerce), state (political dissensions), and church (religious motives).


3. Procedure in founding a Colony.

Of course this can only apply to a colony regularly sent out by the order and approval of the state; otherwise the foundation depended more or less on accidents, and could not follow any fixed method. Even when a colony went forth despatched with the good wishes of the mother-city, we know but imperfectly the exact method followed. The colonists sent to Brea (C. I. A., 1.30) are of the nature of cleruchi, and will be treated of later on. The leader (οἰκιστής) appears to have been appointed, and then to have been himself compelled to find out where the colony was to be led to. For this he applied to the Delphic priests; and the great assistance which these priests rendered to the Greeks in prudent advice as to the sites for their colonies was “the greatest and most permanent service rendered by the Delphic oracle” (Curtius, History, 2.39). Delphi, the centre-point of the Apolline worship, was frequented by Greeks from all parts of the world, and by conversation with these the priests acquired a very considerable amount of geographical knowledge, and, sensible men that they were, used it to direct the colonists who asked their advice. Few failed to do so (Cic. de Div. 1.1, 3), and hence the number of colonies which considered Apollo Archegetes as their founder, and the grateful veneration for Delphi which was felt by the more prosperous colonies (Curtius, op. cit. 2.38). Herodotus (5.42) notices it as an extraordinary proceeding on the part of Dorieus that he led the Spartans on a colony, and yet “did not consult the oracle at Delphi as to the land he should go to colonise nor do anything which was customary.” Participation in the colony was generally left to free choice; but sometimes the colonists were appointed by the state: thus the inhabitants of Thera, when proposing to colonise the island of Platea off Libya, picked out by lot one in every two adult brothers in a family (Hdt. 4.153), and generally, as we shall see, men from various cities joined in each colonising expedition. Actual invitation of foreign participants is to be found in the colonies of the Periclean and subsequent age (Diod. 12.10; Thuc. 3.92). The emigrants, prior to departure, took fire from the sacred hearth of the city which sent them out, to light therewith the hearth in their new home (Etym. M. s. v. πρυτανεῖα: cf. Hdt. 1.146). Arrived at their destination, an altar was often erected to Apollo (Thuc. 6.3); then sometimes unopposed, sometimes after struggles with the natives, they built their town (if such did not already exist) and the land was divided. We cannot say for certain what the principle of division was; it probably varied in different colonies: but as the colonists were mostly poor men of the same rank, it is most likely that the lots were generally equal, except probably in the case of the οἰκιστής, who as leader of the whole expedition no doubt received material privileges and grants while alive, as he certainly received divine honours, such as sacrifices and games, after death (Hdt. 1.167, 6.38; Thuc. 5.11; Diod. 11.66; Paus. 3.1, 8). If the memory of who the oekist had been got lost by lapse of time, some god (mostly Apollo Archegetes, or Hercules) or some hero (e. g. Iolaus, Paus. 5.17, 5) was considered as the founder, and divine honours paid to him as such. When additional settlers were sent to a colony already established (ἔποικοι), we may infer from Thucydides (1.27, ἐπὶ τῇ ἴσῃ καὶ ὁμοίᾳ) that they generally had inferior rights and possessions to the original colonists (ἄποικοι). Taught often by the cause of distress in the mother-country--or was it an aristocratic privilege, in order to be a safeguard to the original colonists, who were likely to become in no long time the higher classes of the colony? (De Laveleye. Primitive Property, p. 150, Eng. trans.)--they made laws to prevent the alienation of the lots; as, for example, at Locri (Aristot. Pol. 2.7, 6).


4. Relations between a Metropolis and a Colony.

When a colony separated from its metropolis in anger, there was no relationship between them. But even when they parted amicably, the relation was not a political one of government and dependency, but one of affection, as between parent and child (ὅσης γὰρ ἀξιοῦσι τιμῆς τυγχάνειν οἱ πατέρες παρὰ τῶν ἐγγόνων, τοσαύτης οἱ κτίσαντες τὰς πόλεις παρὰ τῶν ἀποίκων, Dionys. A. R. 3.7; cf. Plat. Legg. 6.754), though as a matter of fact quarrels often used to arise between the two ; and, as Schömann remarks (Gr. Alt. 2.92), what united the colonies with the mother-country was always weaker than what separated them. What the colonies owed to the mother-country was nothing of the nature of political submission, but respect (τιμᾷ τὴν μητρόπολιν, Thuc. 1.34) and dutiful reverence (τὰ εἰκότα θαυμάζεσθαι). This dutiful reverence was not required outside the sphere of religious worship; thus, for example, the colonists generally had a native of the metropolis to officiate as high priest in their sacrifices (Thuc. 1.25, and Scholiast): and it was observed in a few minor ways, such as giving the names of places in the old country to those of the new--e. g. the river Crathis in Achaea and Sybaris, the Megarian names in Byzantium (Müller, Dor. 1.121); also the names [p. 1.475]Chalcis and Arethusa were most widespread (Curtius, op. cit. 1.437). In fact, as Curtius says, 1.462: “The Greeks united, in a far higher degree than any other nation, an insatiable desire of penetrating into distant regions with the most faithful love of home. Wherever they went they took their home with them.” The citizens, according to the Greek idea, were the city (Hdt. 8.61; Thuc. 7.77). But outside the sphere of religion there appear to have been few ties. In case the colony proposed to found another, according to an old custom it asked a leader from the mother-city (Thuc. 1.24). But they do not as a rule appear to have retained even the coinage of their mother-city (Lenormant, ap. D. and S. 1.1302); and it is quite exceptional when we find any political superiority exercised over the colony. The distances were generally too great, the interests too varied, and the autonomy of each community was a principle too deeply rooted in every Greek mind to admit of voluntary dependence. The policy, too, of commercial colonies must necessarily be of a jealous nature. Corinth alone tried to found a colonial dominion by means of her navy: but this led to colonial war, as between her and Corcyra, and a disruption of the bonds of filial attachment (Curt. op. cit. 1.469). The Corinthians also used to send to their colony Potidaea annual magistrates, called ἐπιδημιουργοί, though we may suppose that these had not much power, else they would not have allowed the Potidaeans to make a truce with Athens, the enemy of Corinth (Thuc. 1.56). The tribute which Cotyora, Cerasus, and Trapezus paid to Sinope was of the nature of rent: for the land they held had been wrested from the barbarians by the inhabitants of Sinope, and so of right belonged strictly to them (Xen. Anab. 5.5, 7, 10). Except under special circumstances and conventions, the citizens of a colony were not citizens of the mother-city, though it was not a Greek principle, as it was a Roman one, that no one could be citizens of two communities at once. True, the Corinthians offer the citizenship of Epidamnus to whosoever will go on the colony they were projecting (Thuc. 1.27); therefore we might suppose that a fortiori the Corinthians had the citizenship: but the Epidamnians were in great straits, and had put themselves entirely into the hands of the Corinthians. The assertion of Timaeus, that the Epizephyrian Locrians and the Locrians of Greece had reciprocally rights of citizenship, among many other assertions of that untrustworthy historian, is controverted by Polybius in his detailed criticism of Timaeus's account of the Locrians (Plb. 12.5-12). Under stress of internal dissensions or any other grievous reverse (cf. Thuc. 5.106), the colonists often applied for aid to the states which founded them,--“as ill-used children to their parents” (Diod. Vat. Exc. x. p. 39),--as the Syracusans did to the Corinthians in the time of Timoleon (Plut. Tim. 23); but generally the colonists were sufficiently prosperous not to require any assistance. Conversely it was considered disgraceful for a colony not to aid its parent state when the latter was subject to unjust attacks (Thuc. l.c.), much more was it impious to bear arms against her (Hdt. 3.19; 8.22): disputes between colony and metropolis it was considered should be settled by arbitration; at least such are the offers of the Corcyreans to the Corinthians (Thuc. 1.28). Yet we not rarely find instances of colonies becoming violently opposed to their parent states. Notable examples are Corcyra to Corinth, and Amphipolis to Athens (Thuc. 5.11). Frequently the colonies, being more enterprising and so acquiring greater prosperity, came to despise their old-world parent state, the more so as the colonies were as a rule far more democratic than their founders, and in their pride of wealth lost all reverence for sentiment and antiquity: thus Sybaris proceeded to set up Olympic games of her own (Ath. 12.522 a). This leads us to consider next--


5. The political career of Colonies.

In this connexion we must begin with a quotation from Plato (Legg. 4.708), where he shows “how colonists, like a swarm of bees, if entirely of one community, similar in race, language, laws, and religion, will be intolerant of any laws and customs at all different from those of the old home, even though the injustice of these laws and customs has been the cause of their enforced expatriation; whereas a mixed population is quite ready to listen to new laws, though it may take years before the founder who is also the legislator may be able to make the different elements of the colony pull well together.” Now it is to be carefully borne in mind that the population forming the Greek colonies were nearly always of different cities and races. Ionians, it is true, who had the gift of accommodating themselves to every locality, generally appear in the front; Chalcis and Miletus, as we saw, were the heads of Greek colonisation: but they only formed the centre body of a population which contained a blending of “Achaean heroism and Dorian energy and perseverance” ; “they were ports which conducted emigration in certain directions.” It would be folly to suppose that Miletus of herself could found eighty colonies in a few generations (Curtius, op. cit. 1.463, 470). The colonists then were generally of a mixed race of Hellenes; and when they had founded their colony, they mixed the race still further by intercourse and intermarrying with the natives. This is especially noticed by Grote in the case of Italy and Sicily (3.377), Gaul (ib. 397), Cyrene (ib. 455), and Olbia (12.298). In countries like Lower Italy and Sicily, which had been colonised by Phoenicians, who had also transported thither vast numbers of people of kin with the Greeks, and where there had thus grown up by successive layers a population related to the Greeks, there eventually was developed, when the great colonising of the Corinthians and the Rhodians was effected, a new vigorous homogeneous Greek nationality, just as in bygone times in the old country from the Pelasgian tribes arose the Hellenic nation (Curtius, op. cit. 1.468).

In connexion with the Greeks of Italy and Sicily, it is worthy of notice that those settled around the Tarentine gulf had Amphictyonic institutions, and a common point of religious assemblage in the festivals of the Lacinian Hera, presided over by the Crotoniates (Ath. 12.541). Doubtless union of religious worship and union in common danger united other complexes of neighbouring towns in similar Amphictyonies: [p. 1.476]e. g. the altar of Apollo Archegetes at Naxos appears to have united the Sicilians (Thuc. 6.3; cf. Grote, 3.359). And the course of development in the more prosperous colonies ran much faster than in the mother-country. We look to America now to solve many of the political and social problems which are beginning to be sorely felt; and the evidence to be derived from the Greek colonies does not prove our expectation to be unnatural. A population like that of the Greek colonies, originally mixed, mixed still further by intercourse with the natives, not tied down by any feeling of reverence for or submission to the laws and customs of priests and nobles, with wealth ever increasing, vigorous, independent, could not tolerate an aristocratic system of government; it had to yield to the timocratic: the aristocracy of birth and worth gave place to the oligarchy of wealth. This important step on the road to democracy brought with it one great advantage, viz. codification and publication of the laws. In the seventh century, besides Draco, we find Zaleucus publishing laws for the Epizephyrian Locrians, and Charondas for Catana, and doubtless for other cities also of Italy and Sicily (Aristot. Pol. 2.9, 5; cf. Plat. Rep. 10.599 E). Every one had before him the prospect of success in the race for wealth: the struggle came to be between the rich and the poor, as always in commercial communities. The aristocracy of Miletus had vanished by the middle of the seventh century; and amidst that city's great wealth, which was as ever accompanied by its shadow, great poverty, there had appeared opposite to one another the two main classes of today, the Capitalists and the Labourers (πλουτίς καὶ χειρομάχα, Plut. Quaest. Grace. § 32=2.298, ed. Reiske). Where the rich, who are the few, gained the upper hand, we find oligarchies; as at Rhegium (Heracl. Pont. 25), Croton (Iamblich. Pythag. § 45), Locri (Plb. 12.16), Agrigentum (D. L. 8.66), the power was in the hands of a Thousand (οἱ χίλιοι). Where the poor had the upper hand, the result was democracy. We hear of demagogues at Sybaris long before those at Athens (Diod. xii. <*>). Close on demagogues follow tyrants: the President, as at Miletus (Aristot. Pol. 8.5.8), becomes the tyrant. The line is hard to draw : Telys of Sybaris is to Diodorus (l.c.) a demagogue, to Herodotus (5.44) a tyrant. “The great majority of ancient tyrants,” says Aristotle (l.c. § 6), “had been demagogues.”

In the colonies then, just as now the dollar is almighty, so “money, money was the man,” as Pindar (Isthm. 2, 11), quoting “the Argive man” Aristodemus, reminded Xenocrates of Agrigentum. And there was plenty of it: hence more beautiful cities and a more brilliant and heightened life than in the mother-country. Without going so far as Roscher (op. cit. p. 69), in asserting that in every branch of higher art and science Hellas proper was indebted for her first stimulus to her colonies, yet much of early Greek philosophy came from the higher minds of Magna Graecia and Sicily,--Xenophanes, Pythagoras, Empedocles, Parmenides; and owing to the rationalistic character of colonial life generally, which mocks at everything ideal, we are not surprised to find that comedy and travesty owed their origin principally to the same region. Poverty had all along been foster-sister of Hellas (Hdt. 7.102); but the luxury of Sybaris is proverbial, Sicilian cookery was famous for delicacy throughout the Greek world (Plat. Rep. 3.404 D), the poorest men in Cyrene wore rings worth 10 minae (Ael. VH 12.30), and the Agrigentines built as if they were to live for ever, and dined as if they were anxious to make the most of the last day of existence (Ael. VH 12.31; cf. Roscher, op. cit. pp. 52, 53).


6. The Athenian Colonies.

These belong to a later period than the greater mass of the other Greek colonies, and differ in the intention with which they were founded. They were more of the nature of cleruchies; but differ from cleruchies in the strict sense in that they were not planted on Hellenic land from which the inhabitants had been expelled, but were settlements effected on the territory of barbarian tribes. They were, however, similar to the cleruchies in the whole arrangement of their planting being directed by the state. We have remaining part of a charter (C. I. A. 1.31= Hicks, Greek Historical Inscriptions, No. 29) directing the foundation of one of these colonies, that of Brea (cf. Plut. Per. 11) in Thrace, which was pre-eminently the country in which such colonies were founded, owing to its great wealth in wood and metals. Such a charter was called ἀποικία (Harpocr. s. v.). By the charter referred to a certain Democlides is appointed as leader of the colony (οἰκιστής). A rider to the charter confined participation in the colony to the Zeugitae and Thetes, which shows one of the main purposes of the colonising policy of Pericles, viz. to free the city of the idle and so turbulent mob (Plut. l.c.). Sundry provisions as regards the religious duties to be observed by the colonists towards the mother-city were further stated, such as sending an ox for sacrifice at the Panathenaea: and a very strict proviso was enacted that this charter was to be final, so that the colonists should have fixity of tenure, and not be liable to be dispossessed by any vote of the easily-moved democracy at home. Orders were given to be ready to depart within thirty days. The state supplied arms and money for the colonists (cf. Arg. to Dem. de Chers.). When the colonists arrived, the lands were distributed to the colonists by γεωνόμοι, which had been previously divided by γεωμέτραι (Bekker, Anecd. 32, 14). The oekist of such a colony received all the honours which the oekist of the colonies of earlier days had received (cf. Hagnon at Amphipolis, Thuc. 5.11). The great national Hellenic colony founded at Thurii under the superintendence of Athens, in 443 B.C., was established with the greatest method and completeness. There were very few Athenians among the colonists. It was connected with Athens by but a very slender tie, and was not mentioned as one of her allies in Thucydides' enumeration (2.9). A full account is given in Grote (5.277) and Curtius (2.488). The colony of Amphipolis, founded about the same time, 437 B.C., was also of a very mixed population. It differed from Thurii, as it was founded partly because it was a convenient centre for getting ship timber from, and also for working the gold and silver mines in the neighbourhood; but principally it served military [p. 1.477]purposes, as being close to the bridge over the Strymon (Thuc. 4.102). Hence it always remained a regular Athenian dependency. This forms a transition to


7. The Athenian Cleruchies.

“All colonies in their relation to the mother-city,” says Roscher (op. cit. p. 44), “may be divided into ἀποικίαι and κληρουχίαι,” --i. e. are independent or dependent. But the ancients did not observe this distinction. Strabo calls all colonies without exception ἀποικίαι. Thucydides (2.27, 70; 5.102) calls ἔποικοι those whom Diodorus and Plutarch, in relating the same events, call κληροῦχοι. However, Herodotus (5.77; 6.100) applies the term κληροῦχοι to those who were settled on the land of the hippobatae at Chalcis. Thucydides uses it (3.50) with reference to the Lesbian colonists, and Aristophanes (Aristoph. Cl. 205) shows that it was a term frequently used. Roscher (p. 45) lays it down as a law that the system of ἀποικίαι gives place to that of κληρουχίαι, according as a state advances to a higher stage of development.

The main characteristics of the Athenian cleruchies were that they consisted solely of Athenians, were settled on Hellenic land, and were dependent. There were doubtless cleruchies sent out by other states, e. g. the Lerii from Miletus (Boeckh, Staatshaushaltung der Athener, 2.457, ed. 3); but it is of the Athenian cleruchies that we alone have any detailed information.

The objects were “to relieve the city of the idle and troublesome mob, to alleviate the distress of the poorer classes, to inspire fear into the allies, and keep watch that they should not take any hostile steps against Athens” (Plut. Per. 11). An additional reason was sometimes to secure a supply of corn, as in the case of the colony to Hadria, which colony also served to protect the surrounding seas from pirates. See the decree relative to Hadria in Boeckh's Seewesen, p. 463. The sending out of cleruchies formed one of the recognised portions of the democratic programme (Aristoph. Cl. 205). In their military aspect they corresponded to the Roman colonies. The Greek writers often call the Roman colonists κληροῦχοι (Dion. H. 8.14; Plut. Flam. 2), and conversely Cicero (de Nat. Deor. 1.26, 72) calls the Athenian cleruchs sent to Samos “landgrabbers” (agripetae). The first cleruchs were those sent to occupy the land of the hippobatae at Chalcis, about 510 B.C., “the first Hellenic town against which the right of the conqueror was enforced with harsh severity” (Curtius, 2.484). Gilbert (Staatsalterthümer, 1.421, note 4) gives a list of the cleruchs sent out between 460 and 427; and, even where the numbers are given, they amount to 9,450, and this does not reckon the cleruchs sent to Lemnos, Imbros, or Aegina.

The procedure adopted in sending out a cleruchy was doubtless similar to that of state-directed colonies, viz. by ordinary bill brought by the senate before the people, which defined the principal conditions on which the cleruchy was founded. The poorer classes of all the ten tribes (see p. 336 of an important Mémoire sur les Colonies Athéniennes au vme et ivme siècles, by M. P. Foucart, among the Mémoires présentés par divers savants à l'Académie des Inscriptions, vol. ix. pp. 388-411) were invited to send in their names, and the lot decided who were to get the lands, which were doubtless measured out prior to the departure of the colonists. They were led by an ἀποικιστὴς or στρατηγός (Arg. to Dem. de Chers.), and to be such a leader was esteemed a great honour (Paus. 1.27, 5). All the prayers and sacrifices for the success of the cleruchy were made on behalf of the state and at state expense, whereas in the ἀποικίαι the consulting of the oracle and all religious duties were left to the initiative of the colonists and their leader (Foucart, p. 340).

As to the relations of the cleruchs to Athens: (1) they remained Athenian citizens, as may be seen from inscriptions from the fifth century B.C.,--e. g. from Melos, Ἐπόνφης Ἀθηναῖος Πανδιονίδος φυλῆς Κυθήρριος (Bull. de Corr. hell. 1.44),--down to Roman times. The Lemnian and Imbrian cleruchs were Athenian citizens (Dem. Phil. 1.34). In a list of killed we have Λημνίων ἐγ Μυρίνης, names with the Athenian tribes they belonged to added to them (C. I. A. 1.443). The official titles for the cleruchs were such as δῆμος ἐν Ἡφαιστίᾳ (Hyperid. pro Lycophr. § 13; cf. C. I. A. 2.284), Ἀθηναίων οἱ ἐν Ποτιδαίᾳ κατοικοῦντες (Dem. de Halon. § 10), οἱ ἐν Μυρίνει πολῖται (C. I. A. 2.593). (2) There seems no definite proof that the state retained the supreme ownership of the lands; for in the inscription of 377 B.C. (C. I. A. 2.17, 1. 29, 37) which Foucart refers to, and which speaks of private and public possessions in the land of the allies, the public possessions refer to mines and other such state property. (3) That the cleruchs paid tribute, though maintained by Boeckh (op. cit. 1.508), has been completely disproved by Kirchhoff ( Ueber die Tributpflichtigkeit der attischen Kleruchen in the Abhandl. der Berliner Akad. d. Wissensch. 1873, pp. 1-35). He divides the Athenian cleruchies into, on the one hand, those settled on lands entirely conquered, from which the inhabitants were driven out, and those acquired by capitulation; and, on the other, those acquired in an amicable manner. In the former of these (e. g. Histiaea, Aegina, Potidaea, Scione, Torone) he proves that the lists which set down the amount of tribute to be paid do not refer to the time when the cleruchies held the land, but to a preceding time: for example, Hestiaea pays a tribute according to two lists; but these lists belong to 454 B.C., not to 446, as Boeckh says; and the Hestiaeans never appear on the lists after 446, the time cleruchs were sent to occupy their lands. As regards the second class of cleruchies (e. g. the Chersonesitae, Andros, Naxos, &c.), the sudden lowerings of the tribute appear inexplicable, unless we suppose it to be a compensation for the cession of their lands to Athenian cleruchs: for example, Andros (p. 27) had its tribute lowered between 427 and 425 from 12 to 6 talents, Imbros (p. 30) from 2 to 1 talent between 444 and 442; cf. Naxos (p. 29), Lemnos (p. 34). (4) There is no evidence as to whether or not the cleruchi could alienate their lands: but their military functions render such a supposition unlikely. For a similar reason, as a general rule the cleruchi had to reside on their land. That the cleruchi of Lesbos were allowed to let the lands to the original owners for a rent and reside themselves at Athens (Thuc. 3.50) is highly exceptional. [p. 1.478](5) The cleruchi certainly paid taxes for their property to their own cleruchic community (Aristot. Oec. 2.6). For such property as some few may have retained in Attica, it is most likely that they had to pay εἰσφοραὶ when such were required; but from muntera personalia, such as the various liturgies, they were of course exempt, as being absent from Athens on state service (Harpocr. s. v. κληροῦχοι: cf. Dem. de Symm. § 16). (6) As we have seen from the list of killed, the cleruchi served in the Athenian army on certain occasions (cf. Hdt. 8.46; Thuc. 7.57); and, even when in their cleruchy, they had to obey strictly whatever orders for military service arrived from Athens (Hdt. 6.100; [Dem.] Epist. Phil. § 16). Beside the cleruchi, there was generally a cavalry force, commanded in the case of Lemnos by an Ἵππαρχος (Dem. Phil. 1.27), which was supported by the cleruchi, and that as it seems sometimes grudgingly (Hyperid. pro Lycophr. § 13). (7) There appear to have been civil magistrates, too, occasionally sent by Athens to the cleruchies. Such are the ἄρχοντες at Lesbos (Antiphon. de Caed. Herodis, § 47), which are no doubt the same as the ἐπίσκοποι (Boeckh, op. cit. i.3 480; cf. Aristoph. Birds 1050). In later times we find ἐπιμεληταὶ sent from Athens, as e. g. to Delos (C. I. G. 2286), Haliartos and Paros (Boeckh, op. cit. i.3 507, and notes). (8) As regards jurisdiction, as far as we can judge from the very fragmentary inscription in reference to the cleruchi of Hestiaea (C. I. A. 1.28, 29), some cases had to be tried within thirty days (δίκαι ἔμμηνοι) before the Nautodicae at Athens; others before judges chosen by lot out of the cleruchi themselves. The really important cases were tried at Athens: e. g. the murder of Herodes. (9) Touching religion, a certain portion, generally a tenth of cleruchic lands, was set apart for the gods (Thuc. 3.50). The cleruchi appear to have worshipped Athenian gods generally, though sometimes the native gods also (Gilbert, op. cit. 1.422). Each cleruchy sent an ox to be sacrificed at the Panathenaea (Schol. on Aristoph. Cl. 386; cf. C. I. A. 1.31). The Athenians also associated the cleruchies in their sacrifices. (See an inscription of the second century in Foucart, p. 384.)

But the cleruchi possessed a certain independence. They had the right of coining money, though only copper: e. g. the coins of Hephaestia and Myrina in Lemnos reproduce Attic emblems (Pallas and the owl), after the Athenian cleruchi had gone there in 387, while the coins prior to this have the attributes of Hermes and the Dioscuri (Foucart, p. 372). Towards the natives, who often, as in the case of Imbros and Lemnos, were reduced to the state of metics (Foucart, p. 393), the Attic cleruchi appear to have formed a strictly closed body, neither intermarrying (such indeed was not allowed by Attic law, Dem. Neaer. § 17) nor having more intercourse than was absolutely necessary. The constitution of the cleruchic state was a miniature Athens, and Foucart (p. 373 ff.) has shown how their political procedure, and even the very names of their officers, changed with the changes at Athens.

Thus we find senate and people at Lemnos (C. I. A. 2.592) and Imbros (Conze, Reise auf den lnseln des Thrakischen Meeres, p. 88), and a prytaneum at Hephaestia in Lemnos (C. I. A. l.c.). Ordinary political procedure consisted of preliminary discussion by the senate, and afterwards debate in the assembly, e. g. at Salamis (C. I. A. 2.470, 1. 56: cf. 469, 1. 79; 594, 1. 22). We have some decrees of cleruchi already mentioned, though of rather late date (C. I. A. 2.591-595; C. I. G. 2270). The date is given by archons both of the cleruchy and of Athens (C. I. A. 2.594). In the Roman era the στρατηγὸς ἐπὶ τοὺς ὁπλίτας takes the place of the archon: so in Myrina (ib. 593). A γραμματεὺς τοῦ δήμου first appears at Athens in 308 B.C. A similar γραμματεὺς is found in two contemporary inscriptions of Lemnos and Imbros (ib. 592; Conze, op. cit. p. 88). In the third century an ἀγωνοθέτης is first found under that name: at the same time we find one at Hephaestia (C. I. A. 2.592). For further minor cleruchic magistracies, see Gilbert, op. cit. 1.424, note 3.

The system of cleruchies, not unreasonable in itself, but prosecuted by the Athenian democracy with exceedingly great tyranny, and yet with no consistency and completeness as the Romans did their colonial system, was the most hated feature of the Athenian empire. Grote (5.299, note 2) indeed does not think that it was looked on as a grievance, as it is not mentioned as such in Xenophon's Resp. Ath., nor in any of the anti-Athenian orations of Thucydides; and that the outcry raised against them at the time of the second confederacy was due to the islands fearing the return of the Athenian cleruchi, who, after the Peloponnesian war, had been driven away and deprived of their property, which had reverted to the insular proprietors (cf. Xen. Mem. 2.8, 1; Symp. 4, 31). Isocrates (Paneg. § 107) felt called upon to defend the system, and did so by asserting that it maintained peace and peopled depopulated lands. But the cities had been depopulated by the Athenians; they made a solitude and called it peace. So when Athens strove to re-organise her allied confederacy a second time in 377 B.C., she distinctly agreed to discontinue the system, and the convention (C. I. A. 2.17, 11. 27, 36) declares that no land is to be held by Athens or an Athenian citizen within the territories of the allies. Yet in 366 B.C., on the conquest of Samos, she renewed the system in that island, which Demades (Ath. 3.99 d' called “the city's drain” (τῆς πόλεως ἀπῶρυξ). The Samians became exiles from their country (Paus. 6.13, 5), and it is with reference to this occupation of Samos and the gradual absorption of the lands by the Athenian settlers that Craterus explains the proverb )*attiko\s pa/roikos of a neighbour who, called in to help you, finally ousts you of your possessions. There was no doubt a bitter feeling, not only on the part of the Samians, but of others who had been dispossessed by Athenian cleruchs. There is an interesting inscription (Hicks, op. cit. No. 135) in which we perceive the intrigues of the Samian exiles at the Macedonian court, and how Alexander promised to give back “Samos to the Samians.” He, however, did not do so; but it was effected by Perdiccas, according to the convention which followed the defeat of the Athenians in the Lamian War, 322 B.C.

The principal authorities on the Greek colonies [p. 1.479]are: Raoul-Rochette, Histoire critique de l‘Établissement des Colonies grecques, Paris, 1815; K. F. Hermann, Lehrbuch der griech. Staatsalterthümer, § § 73-90, ed. 1884; Schömann, Griech. Staatsalterthümer, 2.86-95; W. Roscher, Kolonien, Kolonialpolitik und Auswanderung, esp. 1-129, ed. 1885; Grote, History, ch. xxii.-xxvii.; Curtius, History, 1.407-468, Eng. trans.; G. Gilbert, Handbuch der griech. Staatsalterthömer, 2.397-403; E. Caillemer in Daremberg and Saglio, art. Colonia. On the cleruchies, see especially the articles of Kirchhoff and Foucart referred to; Boeckh, Staatshaushaltung der Athener, i.3 499-509; and G. Gilbert, op. cit. 1.418-427.

[L.C.P]


2. Roman.

The word colonia contains the same element as the verb colere, “to cultivate,” and as the word colonus, which probably originally signified “a tiller of the earth.” The English word colony, which is derived from the Latin, perhaps expresses the notion contained in this word more nearly than is generally the case in such adopted terms.

A kind of colonisation seems to have existed amongst the oldest Italian nations, who, on certain occasions [VER SACRUM], sent out their superfluous male population, with arms in their hands (ἱερὰ νεότης), to seek for a new home. (Dionys. Antiq. Rom. 1.16.) But these were apparently new bands of adventurers, and such colonies rather resembled the old Greek colonies than those by which Rome extended her dominion and her name.

Colonies were established by the Romans as far back as the annals or traditions of the city extend, and the practice was continued during the republic and under the empire. They were intended to keep in check a conquered people, and also to repress hostile incursions, as in the case of the colony of Narnia (Liv. 10.10), which was founded to check the Umbri; and Minturnae and Sinuessa (10.21), Cremona and Placentia (27.46), which were founded for similar purposes. Cicero (de Leg. Agr. 2.27, 73) calls the old Italian colonies the “propugnacula imperii ;” and in another passage (pro Font. 1, 13) he calls Narbo Martins (Narbonne), which was in the provincia Gallia, “Colonia nostroram civium, specula populi Romani et propugnaculum.” Another object was to increase the power of Rome by increasing the population. (Liv. 27.9.) Sometimes the immediate object of a colony was to carry off a number of turbulent and discontented persons. Colonies were also established for the purpose of providing for veteran soldiers, a practice which is first mentioned in B.C. 201 (Liv. 31.4), and continued under the emperors: these coloniae were called militares (Vell. 1.15).

It is remarked by Strabo (p. 216, ed. Casaub.), when speaking of the Roman colonies in the north of Italy, that the ancient names of the places were retained, and that though the people in his time were all Roman, they were called by the names of the previous occupiers of the soil. This fact is in accordance with the character of the old Roman colonies, which were in the nature of garrisons planted in conquered towns, and the colonists had a portion of the conquered territory (usually a third part: Dionys. A. R. 2.35, 50, 53; Liv. 10.1) assigned to them. The inhabitants retained the rest of their lands, and lived together with the new settlers, who alone composed the proper colony. (Dionys. A. R. 2.53.) The conquered people must at first have been quite a distinct class from, and inferior to, the colonists. They were probably regarded as cives sine suffragio. The definition of a colonia by Gellius (16.13) will appear, from what has been said, to be sufficiently exact: “Ex civitate quasi propagatae--populi Romani quasi effigies parvae simulacraque.”

No colonia was established without a lex, generally a plebiscitum, based upon a senatusconsultum; in some cases the last alone is mentioned (Liv. 37.47, 57), but it is probable that the confirmation by the people was always requisite (Madvig, Verf. u. Verw. 2.29). This fact shows that a Roman colony was never a mere body of adventurers, but had a regular organisation by the parent state. According to an ancient definition quoted by Niebuhr (Serv. ad Verg. A. 1.12), a colony is a body of citizens, or socii, sent out to possess a commonwealth, with the approbation of their own state, or by a public act of that people to whom they belong; and it is added, those are colonies which are founded by public act, not by any secession. Many of the later laws which relate to the establishment of coloniae are leges agrariae, or laws for the division and assignment of public lands.

When a law was passed for founding a colony, persons were elected by the people to superintend its formation (coloniam deducere). These persons varied in number, but three was a common number (triumviri ad colonos deducendos, Liv. 37.46, 6.21). We also read of duumviri, quinqueviri, vigintiviri for the same purpose. The law fixed the quantity of land that was to be distributed, and how much was to be assigned to each person. When the colony was not an inviting one, it was difficult to fill up the number of volunteers (Liv. 10.21); but as a colony was often founded as a military measure for the defence of the state, the requisite garrison might be raised by levy, or by lot (Dionys. A. R. 7.13; Plut. Cor. 13); and colonists were not allowed to withdraw from the colony at pleasure. The number of heads of families was usually in the early times, and sometimes afterwards, 300 (Dionys. A. R. 2.35, 53; Liv. 8.21, 32.29, 34.45), but there is no reason to. accept the conjecture which connects this number with the traditional 300 gentes at Rome. At a later period the number was often much larger: thus 2000 were sent to Satricum (Liv. 6.16), to Mutina, and to Parma (Liv. 39.55); 2500 to Cales (Liv. 8.16) and to Luceria (Liv. 9.26); 3000 in Volscos (Liv. 5.24); 4000 to Interamna (Liv. 9.28) and elsewhere; and 6000 to Alba (Liv. 10.1) and to Placentia (Ascon. ad Cic. in Pis. p. 121).

Roman citizens who were willing to go out as members of a colony gave in their names at Rome (nomina dederunt, Liv. 1.11, an expression which is also used of soldiers enrolling, and which plainly indicates the military nature of the proceeding). Cicero (pro Dom. 30, 78) says that Roman citizens who chose to become members of a Latin colony must go voluntarily (auctores facti), for this was a capitis deminutio ; and in another passage (pro Caecin. 33, 98) he alleges the fact of Roman citizens going out in [p. 1.480]Latin colonies as a proof that loss of civitas must be a voluntary act.

The colonia proceeded to its place of destination in the form of an army (sub vexillo), which is indicated on the coins of some coloniae. An urbs, if one did not already exist, was a necessary part of a new colony, and its limits were marked out by a plough, which is also indicated on ancient coins. The colonia had also a territory, which, whether marked out by the plough or not (Cic. Phil. 2.40, 102), was at least marked out by metes and bounds. Thus the urbs and territory of the colonia respectively corresponded to the urbs Roma and its territory. Religious ceremonies always accompanied the foundation of the colony, and the anniversary was afterwards observed. (Plut. C. Gracchus, 11; Serv. ad Verg. A. 5.755; Cic. ad Attic. 4.1. 4, pro Sest. 63, 131). It is stated that a colony could not be sent out to the same place to which a colony had already been sent in due form (auspicato deducta). This merely means that so long as the colony maintained its existence, there could be no new colony in the same place,--a doctrine that would hardly need proof, for a new colony implied a new assignment of lands; but new settlers (novi adscripti) might be sent to occupy colonial lands not already assigned. (Liv. 6.30; Cic. Phil. 2.40, 102.) Indeed it was not unusual for a colony to receive a supplementum, as in the case of Venusia (Liv. 31.49), and in other cases (Tac. Ann. 14.27); and a colony might be re-established, if it seemed necessary, from any cause: under the emperors such re-establishment was sometimes entirely arbitrary, and done to gratify personal vanity, or from some similar motive. (Cf. Madvig, Opusc. 1.285.)

The commissioners appointed to conduct the colony had apparently a profitable office, and the establishment of a new settlement gave employment to numerous functionaries, among whom Cicero (de Leg. Agr. 2.13, 32) enumerates apparitores, scribae, librarii, praecones, architecti. The foundation of a colony might then, in many cases, not only be a mere party measure, carried for the purpose of gaining popularity, but it would give those in power an opportunity of providing places for many of their friends.

The first division of the colonies was into (1) coloniae civium Romanorum and (2) coloniae Latinae.

To the former class belonged all colonies, where the colonising immigrants consisted exclusively of Roman citizens. Although there is no express testimony to this effect, it hardly admits of doubt that these retained the civitas cum suffragio et iure bonorum (Marquardt, Handbuch, 4.36). Similarly Madvig (Opusc. 1.232-244) has made it very probable that the conquered prior inhabitants had the civitas sine suffragio. This seems to follow from the fact that they are frequently spoken of as cives; and that they had no other magistrates or laws than those of the colony. Thus only can we understand the gradual blending of the new comers and the old inhabitants, which appears to have been effected de facto long before the Lex Julia. Madvig and Mommsen have drawn up lists of thirty-two of such colonies, the date of the foundation of these lying between B.C. 338 and B.C. 100. This list excludes Ostia, which is said to have been founded under Ancus Marcius, and Labici (B.C. 418), which is a doubtful instance. It is confessedly incomplete, for, according to Asconius (in Pis. p. 3), there must have been several more, the names of which are not known to us.

The latter class included three kinds of colonies, of somewhat different origin, and founded in three different periods. Five colonies are ascribed to the time of the old Latin alliance, which subsisted in the regal period of Rome. Seven others date from the renewed alliance established by Sp. Cassius, and including also the Hernici. After the close of the wars with the Latins (B.C. 338) and the Hernicans (B.C. 306), when the supremacy had passed entirely into the hands of Rome, the Romans frequently planted in conquered territory outside of Latium colonies consisting partly of Roman citizens, partly of Latins; of these twenty-seven have been enumerated by Madvig and Mommsen. A Latin colony was planted by Roman triumviri and after a plebiscitum, like a colony of Roman citizens, but differed essentially from the latter in its legal position. It formed an independent community, under the rule of no Roman magistrate, and not bound to accept the Roman law, except so far as it thought fit to do so. The citizens lost the Roman franchise, and became peregrini, serving not in the legions, but in cohortes and alae, like other allies. Along with the older allied states they formed the nomen Latinum, and enjoyed commercium and probably also conubium with Rome. This last class of colonies were founded almost invariably in the interior of the Italian peninsula, while the, colonies civium Romanorum founded during the same period were as a rule upon the sea-coast. The position of the Latin colonies appears to have become worse in course of time, and the distinction between the inhabitants of these and those who possessed the full franchise to have become more marked. A passage in Cicero (pro Caec. 35, 102) speaks of a particular legal position as that of “the twelve colonies:” this phrase has been much discussed, but most scholars are now of the opinion that the true interpretation was given first by Mommsen (Gesch. d. Röm. Münzw. p. 317). He explains that the twelve Latin colonies founded after B.C. 268, the first of which was Ariminum, had only that limited franchise, which was afterwards extended to Transpadane Gaul, to some towns of Sicily; and under the empire to various provinces. We do not know the details of this later or lesser Latin franchise; but there are three points well established. It did not carry the right of coinage, except in some instances, where the coinage of copper was permitted; it did not admit of conubium, although there was commercium; and, thirdly, the acquisition of the full Roman franchise was made more difficult than had been the case.

Besides these coloniae, there were coloniae Italici juris, as some writers term them; but which in fact were not colonies. Sigonius, and most subsequent writers, have considered the jus Italicum as a personal right, like the Civitas and Latinitas; but Savigny has shown it to be quite a different thing. The jus Italicum was granted to favoured provincial cities; it was a grant to the community, not to the individuals [p. 1.481]composing it. This right consisted in quiritarian ownership of the soil (commercium), and its appurtenant capacity of mancipatio, usucapion, and vindicatio, together with freedom from taxes; and also in a municipal constitution, after the fashion of the Italian towns, with duumviri, quinquennales, aediles, and a jurisdictio. Many provincial towns which possessed the jus Italicum have on their coins the figure of a standing Silenus, with the hand raised, which was the

IMP. M. IVL. PHILIPP. Philippus, A.D. 244-249.

AEL. MVNICIP. CO. Coela or Coelos (Plin. Nat. 4.47) in the Thracian Chersonesus.

peculiar symbol of municipal liberty. (Obeundus Marsya, Hor. Sat. 1.6, 120.) Pliny (3. § § 18, 139) has mentioned several towns that had the jus Italicum; and Lugdunum (Lyon), Vienna (Vienne), and Colonia Agrippinensis (Cologne) had this privilege. It follows from the nature of this privilege, that towns which had the Latinitas or the Civitas, which was a personal privilege, might not have the jus Italicum; but the towns which had the jus Italicum could hardly be any other than those which had the Civitas or Latinitas, and we cannot conceive that it was ever given to a town of Peregrini.

The colonial system of Rome, which originated in the earliest ages, was well adapted to strengthen and extend her power: “By the colonies the empire was consolidated, the decay of population checked, the unity of the nation and of the language diffused.” (Machiavelli, quoted by Niebuhr.) The countries, which the Romans conquered within the limits of Italy, were inhabited by nations that cultivated the soil and had cities. To destroy such a population was not possible nor politic; but it was a wise policy to take part of their lands, and to plant bodies of Roman citizens, and also Latinae coloniae, among the conquered people. The power of Rome over her colonies was derived, as Niebuhr has well remarked, “from the supremacy of the parent state, to which the colonies of Rome, like sons in a Roman family, even after they had grown to maturity, continued unalterably subject.” In fact, the notion of the patria potestas will be found to lie at the foundation of the institutions of Rome.

The principles of the system of colonisation were fully established in the early ages of Rome; but the colonies had a more purely military character,--that is, were composed of soldiers, in the latter part of the republic, and under the earlier emperors. The first colony established beyond the limits of Italy was Carthago (Vell. 2.15); Narbo Martins was the next. Nemausus (Nîmes) was made a colony by Augustus,--an event which is commemorated by medals (Rasche, Lexicon Rei Numariae), and an extant inscription at Nîmes.

In addition to the evidence from written books of the numerous colonies established by the Romans in Italy, and subsequently in all parts of the empire, we have the testimony of medals and inscriptions, in which COL., the

Coin of Nemausus.

abbreviation of colonia, indicates this fact, or, as in the case of Sinope, the Greek inscription ΚΟΛΩΝΕΙΑ. Septimius Severus made Tyre a colonia Veteranorum (Rasche, Lexicon Rei Numariae, s. v. Tyrus).

Colonies were sometimes established under the late republic and the empire with circumstances of great oppression, and lands were assigned to the veterans without regard to existing rights.

Under the emperors, all legislative authority being then virtually in them, the foundation of a colony was an act of imperial grace, and often merely a title of honour conferred on some favoured spot. Thus M. Aurelius raised to the rank of colonia the small town (vicus) of Halale, at the foot of Taurus, where his wife Faustina died. (Jul. Capitol. M. Ant. Philos. 100.26.) The old military colonies were composed of whole legions, with their tribunes and centurions, who, being united by mutual affection, composed a political body (respublica); but it was a complaint in the time of Nero, that soldiers who were strangers to one another, without any head, without any bond of union, were suddenly brought together on one spot, “numerus magis quam colonia” (Tac. Ann. 14.27). And on the occasion of the mutiny of the legions in Pannonia, upon the accession of Tiberius, it was one ground of complaint, that the soldiers, after serving thirty or forty years, were separated, and dispersed in remote parts; where they received, under the name of a grant of lands (per nomen agrorum), swampy tracts and barren mountains. (Tac. Ann. 1.17.

It remains briefly to state what was the internal constitution of a colonia. On this subject great light has been thrown by the discovery in 1851 of the municipal laws of Salpensa and Malaca in Hispania Baetica. (Cf. C. I. L. 2.1963, 1964; Bruns, Fontes Iuris Romani, 120-131; Mommsen, Die Stadtrechte d. lat. Gem. Sal. u. Mal. 1855.) The genuineness of these valuable records was for a time disputed, but is now accepted universally. They date from about A.D. 81, and therefore describe the municipal constitution under the early empire; but it is not, as a rule, difficult to draw conclusions from this as to its character at an earlier date.

In the later times of the republic, the Roman state consisted of two distinct organised parts, Italy and the Provinces. “Italy consisted of a great number of republics (in the Roman sense of the term), whose citizens, after the Italian war, became members of the sovereign people. The communities of these citizens were subjects [p. 1.482]of the Roman people, yet the internal administration of the communities belonged to themselves. This free municipal constitution was the fundamental characteristic of Italy; and the same remark will apply to both principal classes of such constitutions, municipia and coloniae. That distinction which made a place into a praefectura is mentioned afterwards; and fora, conciliabula, castella, are merely smaller communities, with an incomplete organisation.” (Savigny. Cf. Marquardt, Staatsverw. i.2 2-21.) As in Rome, so in the colonies, the popular assembly had originally the sovereign power; they chose the magistrates, and could even make laws. (Cic. de Leg. 3.1. 6, 36.) It was a natural conjecture of Savigny's that, when the popular assemblies became a mere form in Rome, and the elections were transferred by Tiberius to the senate, the same thing happened in the colonies, and that the senates then acquired whatever power had once belonged to the community. But there is abundant epigraphic evidence to show that this was by no means the case. The division of the citizens (populus) into curiae, and the electoral activity of these when assembled in their comitia, long continued. On the walls of Pompeii we find frequent appeals of candidates, or in favour of candidates, to the popular body; and not only does the Lex Malacitana prescribe the details of the popular election, but we actually have mention of a nominatio populi suffragiis in Africa as late as A.D. 326. In practice, however, the election soon became little more than a formality; for office in these country towns was often regarded as a burden quite as much as an honour. In the laws dating from the time of Domitian, the presiding magistrate is empowered to nominate candidates, in case a sufficient number do not offer themselves, a right which doubtless existed in much earlier times; and if no more were nominated than were required to fill the vacancies, the confirmation by the popular vote was a mere form. (Mommsen, Stadtrechte, pp. 421-427.)

The town-council or senate consisted, like the Roman senate, of a fixed number of members, holding office for life, selected by magistrates corresponding to the censors at Rome, in the first instance from those who had been elected by the people as magistrates. The number was fixed by the law constituting the colony (Lex Jul. Munic. 85), and was usually 100, though we find instances of both smaller and larger bodies. The senate was called senatus, ordo decurionum, or curia; or in imitation of the Roman terms, patres et conscripti, decuriones conscriptique; the members of it decuriones, or at a later time (very rarely in inscriptions) curiales. An inscription from Canusium (Mommsen, I.R. N. 635) shows us very clearly the composition of a municipal senate. We find the names arranged under the following heads :--(1) patroni clarissimi viri, thirty-one in number; these had held office at Rome, and were Roman senators, and were apparently honorary members of the local senate: (2) patroni equites Romani, eight in number, and similarly honorary members: (3) quinquennalicii, local ex-censors, seven in number (including two of the previous class): (4) allecti inter quinq., four men to whom a higher rank had been conceded by a special vote: (5) duoviralicii, twenty-nine in number, ex-duumviri of the place: (6) aedilicii, nineteen, past aediles: (7) quaestoricii, nine past quaestors: (8) pedani, thirty-two in number, who had held no office, but had been admitted into the senate by the quinquennales: (9) praetextati, twenty-five in number, sons of senators, whose names were placed on the roll, as a mark of honour, although apparently, like the corresponding class at Rome, they attended the meetings of the senate only as listeners.

The functions of the senate were much the same as those of the senate at Rome. It acted as the deliberative body, and passed resolutions which it was the duty of the magistrates to execute; but the ordinary executive functions of government lay with the latter. The laws of Malaca and Salpensa mention eight cases which come within the competence of the senate: the most important of these are the control of the municipal property, and the hearing of appeals against fines imposed by the magistrates. Towards the close of the second century after Christ the position and character of the municipal bodies underwent gradual and very important changes, as a result of the increasing centralisation of the imperial administration. Popular election died out: those possessed of the requisite property were appointed, often against their will, decuriones, and from these the magistrates were selected. Ultimately the decuriones came to be regarded as a class of magistrates, and were charged with various functions: and finally the position became hereditary, and the curiales constituted a kind of official aristocracy.

In many of the earlier municipia the chief magistrates continued to retain the titles which they had held before the towns came under the power of Rome. Thus there was a dictator at Aricia, Lanuvium, Nomentum, Tusculum, and in the Latin colony of Sutrium; and two praetores in many of the Italian colonies, both civium Romanorum and Latinae, as also in those planted in Gaul and Spain. There were also in all cases two aediles, probably instituted. soon after the creation of the curule aedileship at Rome, and on the model of it. But as a rule the higher magistrates consisted of four officials, two for judicial business (iure dicundo), two charged with supervision of buildings, roads, &c. (aedilicia potestate). These either constituted two colleges, duouiri iure dicundo and duoviri aediles, or else one college with two divisions, quattuorviri iure dicundo and quattuorviri aediles. The evidence of inscriptions (collected by Mommsen, L. R. N., Index, s. v. duoviri) fully bears out the conjecture of Manutius (on Cic. pro Sest. 100.8), that the former arrangement was that usual in colonies, the latter that in municipia. There are even a few towns in which these magistrates along with the two aerarii (quaestors) and the two auctores fanorum were combined into a college of octoviri.

The duoviri or quattuorviri iure dicundo were the highest officials and alone bore the title magistratus. Their year of office was denoted by their names, as by those of the consuls at Rome. They had the supreme judicial authority, but in Roman colonies not the power of presiding over manumission, emancipation and adoption; a suggestive indication of the extent to which the Latin colonies and municipia retained a formal [p. 1.483]independence of the Roman community (Mommsen, Stadtrechte, p. 436). They presided over elections in the popular assembly, and over the senate, and could appoint a substitute (praefectus) in case of absence. They wore the praetexta, and were attended by two lictors bearing the fasces (without the axe), which, however, probably differed in form from those of the Roman magistrates, for they are also called virgae or bacilli. (Cic. de Leg. Agr. 2.3. 4, 93; ad Att. 11.6, 2.) But these distinctions they enjoyed only within the limits of their own communities. The duoviri or quattuorviri aediliciae potestatis were the collegae minores of the judicial magistrates. Their functions are sufficiently indicated by their names.

The quinquennales after the date of the Lex Julia of B.C. 90 discharged the duties which had in most cases been previously fulfilled by two municipal censors. The history of this important office was discussed adequately for the first time by Henzen in the Annali for 1858, pp. 1 ff. The municipal revenues were derived partly from the landed property of the community (including also forests, fisheries, and mines), which was generally farmed by contractors, partly from invested capital, which was usually funded for special purposes, and partly from a tax, which was imposed in case of need upon all inhabitants. Every fifth year magistrates were elected, whose full title was duoviri (quattuorviricensoria potestate quinquennales, and who, as Zumpt has shown, for this year replaced the ordinary duoviri, and gave their name to the year. Their special duties included the revision of the senatorial and citizens' lists, and the settlement of the finance of the community for the next five years. With increasing centralisation the functions of the quinquennales were transferred almost entirely to an imperial commissioner, called curator, but it is a mistake, as Zumpt has shown, to identify the two offices. A curator is first named in a rescript of Nerva (Dig. 34, 24, 3.4), and for some time this officer appears as directly appointed by the emperor, usually not from the citizens of the municipium. Afterwards he was chosen by the decuriones, out of their own body. The quinquennales continued to be elected, but all control of finance seems to have been taken out of their hands.

In some towns we find quaestores, who had the charge of the details of finance, like the quaestors at Rome. In other cases the town-treasury was committed to a third aedile, as at Arpinum (Cic. Att. 15.1. 5, 1). Praefecti were appointed to discharge the functions of any magistrate, unable for any reason to fulfil them himself. It was not uncommon under the empire for the emperor himself, or some member of his house, to accept the position of one of the duoviri of a community, in order to do honour to it. In this case a praefectus was of course necessary to discharge the duties of the office. From these we must carefully distinguish the praefecti sent from Rome to the praefecturae.

The relation of the terms colonia, municipium, and praefectura has been much discussed, and complete agreement has not yet been arrived at, partly in consequence of the looseness with which some ancient authorities use the words, and partly because their precise force seems to have differed at different periods. The word municipium was usually derived by ancient writers from munus capere, in the sense of “to undertake a duty” (Gellius, 16.13, 6); but the explanation now justly preferred is that of Rudorff, who interprets it as coming from the same words, in the sense of “to receive a gift.” The term is then originally an abstract word denoting a relation of hospitality, and it came to be applied, as a concrete name, for towns which had entered into this relation with Rome. Festus thus defines it: “municipium id genus hominum dicitur, qui cum Romam venissent, neque cives Romani essent, participes tamen omnium rerum ad munus fungendum una cum Romanis civibus praeterquam de suffragio ferendo aut magistratu cupiendo . . . alio modo cum id genus hominum definitur, quorum civitas universa in civitatem Romanam venit.” These two classes have the common feature that their inhabitants are cives Romani sine suffragio: but the former constitute distinct communities ( “ut semper rempublicam separatim a populo Romano haberent,” Fest.); the latter have no municipal authorities of their own, but are governed from Rome. Capua is an instructive example of the distinction: for in B.C. 338 it was placed in the former class ; in B.C. 211, after its revolt, it was reduced to the latter. Now, as these towns by degrees attained the complete Roman franchise, they ceased to constitute civitates, and came under the jurisdiction of the praetor urbanus. As he could not discharge his duties in person, he nominated deputies (praefecti iure dicundo) to administer Roman law in the various municipia. It has been usually held that this was not the case with all colonies and municipia, but only with a certain number of them, to which the name praefecturae was specially given. But Festus (p. 233) distinctly includes the three separate classes (municipia of both kinds and colonies) under the head of praefecturae; and this is supported by the fact that we find even under the empire municipia and colonies passing for a time and for special reasons into the category of praefecturae, i.e. governed by deputies sent from Rome, and not by their own elected magistrates. This induces Marquardt (Handbuch, iv. p. 43) and Mommsen to hold that all colonies and municipia were originally praefecturae. On the other hand, as of the twenty-two examples quoted by Festus, eighteen were municipia sine suffragio, and only four coloniae civium Romanorum, it is quite possible that Festus has included the last on the strength of some authority referring to their position before they were made colonies; e. g. Puteoli we know to have been governed by duoviri in B.C. 105. Hence Willems holds with Madvig that the praefecturae were always municipia sine suffragio. In any case, as soon as a community received the full franchise, it gained therewith the right of electing its own magistrates, and ceased to be a praefectura. But even after the Lex Julia of B.C. 90, which raised all communities in Italy to the rank of municipia or coloniae civium Romanorum, there were certain communities which, for reasons unknown to us, still were governed by praefecti sent from Rome. At some time in the first century B.C. the praefecti sent to Campania were changed into ivviri iure dicundo, elected [p. 1.484]by the comitia tributa; but the others were still nominated by the praetor.

Of the earlier authorities we may mention Sigonius, de Jure Antique, &c.; Niebuhr, Roman History; Savigny, Ueber das Jus Italicum, Zeitschr. vol. v.; Tabulae Heracleenses, ed. Mazocchi, Neap. 1754; Savigny, Der Römische Volksschluss der Tafel von Heraclea, and Rudorff, Ueber die Lex Manilia de Colonits, Zeitschr. vol. ix.; Rudorff, Das Ackergesetz von Sp. Thorius, and Puchta, Ueber den Inhalt der Lex Rubria de Gallia Cisalpina, Zeitschr. vol. x.; Beaufort, Rep. Rom. v. pp. 278-308. But these are to a large extent rendered obsolete by the researches of Madvig, Opuscula, De Jure et Condicione Coloniarum Populi Romani, Hauniae, 1834; C. G. Zumpt, Ueber den Unterschied der Benennungen, Municipium, Colonia, Praefectura, Berlin, 1840; Mommsen, Die Stadtrechte von Malaca und Salpensa, Leipzig, 1855; Geschichte d. Röm. Münzwesens, Berlin, 1860; A. W. Zumpt, Comment. Epigraphica, vol. i. ; E. Kuhn, Die städtische u. bürgerl. Verf. des R. Reichs, vol. i., Leipzig, 1864; Marquardt, Handbuch, vol. iv., Leipzig, 1873. The great collections of inscriptions are here of especial value.

[G.L] [A.S.W]

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    • Cicero, Letters to Atticus, 4.1.4
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