LATI´NITAS
LATI´NITAS,
LA´TIUM, JUS
LA´TII (
τὸ καλούμενον Λάτιον,
Strabo iv. p.187;
Λατίου δίκαιον, Appian,
App. BC
2.26). To understand the meaning of these terms at various
periods of Roman history, it is necessary to go back to the conquest of Alba
Longa by Rome, which then entered into an
aequum
foedus with the Latini, or peoples of Latium, who at that time
were leagued together in a federation of thirty towns (
Dionys. A. R. 5.61). The attempt of Rome
to assert a sort of suzerainty over the Latin league led to a war (
Dionys. A. R. 5.34), which resulted in the
Latins, though nominally remaining
socii of
Rome, being practically reduced to dependence on her (
Dionys. A. R. 3.54;
Liv. 1.35-
38). However, they seized
the opportunity of Rome's struggle with Porsena to repudiate the yoke: she
surrendered the claim to exercise a protectorate, and in 493 B.C. a new
alliance. was concluded on terms of absolute equality (
ἰσοπολιτεία,
Dionys. A. R. 8.70), the members of the
league and Rome enjoying reciprocal rights. of
conubium (
Liv. 1.49;
Dionys. A. R. 6.1),
commercium (
Liv. 41.8), and of
settling on one another's territory with at any rate some public rights: we
read of Latins voting in the comitia tributa in
Dionys. A. R. 8.72;
Liv. 23.3,
16; Appian,
Bell. Cic. 1.23,
&c. In 486 B.C. the Hernici were admitted to the confederation,
which endured between the three peoples substantially for 140 years. In 340
B.C. occurred the Latin war, which terminated in the dissolution of the
league: the interchange of
commercium and
conubium between its members ceased (
Liv. 8.14;
9.43,
2,
4), and each of the
towns which had belonged to it was brought into a direct relation of
dependence with Rome, though there was great variety in the privileges which
they enjoyed with respect to her, some apparently retaining
conubium, commercium, and the right of acquiring
civitas by settlement. From this time
onward the Italian
civitates or communities are
roughly divisible into those which possess the Roman
civitas in whole or part (
municipia and
coloniae Romanae; see
COLONIA), and those which
retain their independence by treaty, their only obligation towards Rome as a
rule being the furnishing of a contingent of troops to the Roman army
(
civitates foederatae and
coloniae Latinae). It has been pointed out under the
head of
COLONIA that joint
colonies had been founded by the Romans and the Latin league both before and
after the accession of the Hernici; these colonists being in all cases
called
Latini. Colonies which were founded
after the destruction of the league (340 B.C.) under the name
Latinae were established solely by Rome, and lay
outside the limits of Latium. The colonists were in the main Latins, or
members of other kindred or allied communities: but among; them there were
often some of the poorer Roman citizens, who were tempted to surrender their
Roman
civitas, thus suffering
capitts deminutio media Gaius, 3.56;
Cic. pro Caec. 33, 98;
pro Domo, 30, 78), by the offer of an assignment of
land. These later Latin colonies at first possessed the same rights with
those which had been jointly founded by Rome and the league:
[p. 2.10]they were in a large measure independent of Rome, not being
bound to adopt the Roman law unless they became
fundus (
Gel. 16.13;
Cic. pro Balb. 8, 21), having
their own coinage, and their citizens being, in relation to Rome,
peregrini (Gaius, 1.79;
Liv.
43.13), though obliged to serve in the Roman army. As possessing
the rights of
conubium and
commercium, and of acquiring at least a limited
civitas by settling at Rome, they were described,
along with such old Latin colonies and towns of the league as had retained
their ancient privileges, as
socii Latini nominis,
socii of a privileged order. But these privileges were at last
curtailed. After the colonisation of Ariminum (268 B.C.) there is observable
a strong tendency to confine the rights of new
coloniae
Latinae strictly to
commercium.
Later writers speak of
Latini coloniarii having
commercium (Ulp.
Reg. 19, 4), but not
conubium (ib. 5, 4). Similarly their
general right of settling at Rome, and thereby becoming
cives if they left a son behind in the colony (
Liv. 41.8,
9), was taken
away from them. The Roman dislike of its exercise is attested by the
expulsion of Latins from Rome in B.C. 187 and 177 (
Liv.
39.3;
41.9,
9), and eventually
Latini coloniarii were able to
rise to the Roman
civitas only in two ways: by
discharging one of the higher magistracies (
honores) in their own colony (
App. BC
2.26; Strabo, 4.1, 12), and by bringing a successful prosecution
under the Lex Acilia repetundarum, passed B.C. 123 (
C. I. L.
1.198, 11. 76, 78). The phrase “per Latium venire in civitatem”
(Plin.
Paneg. 37; Gaius, 1.95) denotes in particular the
first of these. Under the emperors, attainment of an
honor in some towns with Latin rights made only the
individual himself
civis: in others the
privilege was shared with him by his parents, wife and family, and this
seems to be the clue to the meaning of
minus Latium,
majus Latium in Gaius, 1.95, and the Lex municip. Salpens.
100.21.
Thus before the Social War there were only two classes of persons,
oives and
peregrini,
the Latins being included under the latter denomination, along with the
socii and the provincial subjects of Rome.
The leges Julia and Plautia Papiria, passed at the end of that war [
CIVITAS], extended Roman
citizenship all over Italy, so that Latinitas in the old sense disappeared.
But the rights which it connoted-
commercium
without
conubium or the public rights of
citizenship--had become a distinct political conception: and the term was
retained to denote a status which the Romans conferred on towns and
countries outside Italy by way of favour. The first step in this direction
was made by a Lex Pompeia, B.C. 89, which conferred this Latinitas on the
Transpadane Gauls (Ascon.
in Pis. p. 3), and expressly
provided that the attainment of a
honor should
be a title to the
civitas. Cicero says the same
status was bestowed on the Sicilians after Caesar's death (
ad
Att. 14.12): Hadrian granted it to a large number of cities (Spart.
Had. 21), and Vespasian to the whole of Spain (
Plin. Nat. 3.4) and to some of the Alpine
tribes (ib. 3.20); and Richard of Cirencester, in his work
de situ Britanniae, speaks of ten cities in Britain
which were “Latio jure donatae.” The number of communities
possessed of the same rights was increased by the establishment of Latin
colonies in the provinces after the Social War: thus (e. g.) Comum was made
a
colonia Latina by Caesar (B.C. 59) under the
name of Novum Comum (Appian,
App. BC 2.26),
and several towns of this class, especially in Spain, are mentioned by
Pliny: see
COLONIA The
Latini coloniarii mentioned by Ulpian are thus apparently
the inhabitants either of
coloniae Latinae in
the provinces, or of towns or districts on which the
jus
Latii had been conferred by a lex or imperial favour, both of
which seem to be included under the “oppida Latinorum veterum”
which Pliny (
3.18) mentions along with the
“oppida civium Romanorum,” military colonies of Roman
citizens.
A new class of Latins originated with the Lex Junia Norbana, the date of
which is approximately 19 A.D. Prior to that statute, slaves manumitted
otherwise than by
vindicta, census, or
testamentum [
MANUMISSIO], even though fully owned “ex jure
Quiritium” by their masters, had not become free in the eye of
the law; but they were said “in libertate esse,” being
protected by the praetor so long as they lived against any attempt on the
part of the master to exercise the rights of ownership over them (
“olim ex jure Quiritium servi, sed auxilio praetoris in libertatis
forma servari soliti,” Gaius, 3.56). The number of such semi-free
persons was increased by the Lex Aelia Sentia, A.D. 4, which further
curtailed the power of making slaves
cives by
manumission (Gaius, 1.18, 38). A legal status, however, was given them by
the Lex Junia Norbana, which provided that, like
Latini
coloniarii, they should have the
commercium without the
conubium or
the public rights of
civitas: hence they were
called
Latini Juniani (Gaius, 1.22, 3.56). Even
the ordinary rights of
commercium, however,
were curtailed largely in their case by the statutes depriving them of the
power of making a will, of benefiting under the will of another person, and
of competence to be appointed guardian under a testament (Gaius, 1.22, 24;
Ulp.
Reg. 20, 8): consequently as they must die intestate,
and could have neither
sui heredes nor agnates,
their property went inevitably on their decease to the patron “jure
quodammodo peculii” (Gaius, 3.56;
Inst. 3.7, 4).
The children of a Latinus Junianus inherited their father's status. But
there was a large number of ways in which a Latinus Junianus could rise to
the
civitas either alone, or along with his
wife and children: these, which are enumerated by Gaius, 1.28
sq.,and more fully by Ulpian,
Reg. 3,
comprise remanumission in one of the statutory modes, serving a certain time
in the Roman guards, imperial grant,
jus
liberorum, &c. (See Mr. Poste's
Gaius, note on 1.35.)
The status of Latinitas disappeared momentarily when Caracalla bestowed Roman
citizenship on all the free subjects of the Empire [
CIVITAS], but the operation of the Lex Junia must
have at once re-created it. Justinian says (
Inst. 1.5, 3)
that in his time Latins were not often met with, and by Cod. 7.7 he
abolished the status of Latinitas altogether.
(Marquardt,
Römische Staatsverwaltung, i. pp. 23-57;
Savigny,
Ueber die Entstehung und Fortbildung der Latinität,
vermischte Schriften, i. pp. 14-18;
Der römische
Volkschluss der Tafel von Heraclea, ib. iii. pp. 293-304;
Madvig,
de
[p. 2.11]Jure Coloniar., opusc. acad., pp.
271-284; Rudorff,
Römische Rechtsgeschichte,
§ 11; Vangerow,
Latini Juniani,
Marburg, 1833; Puchta,
Institutionen, § §
62, 63.)
[
J.B.M]
