VICUS
VICUS (akin to
οἷκος), a term
used in different applications.
1. In the earliest times the various Italian nations appear to have lived,
not in towns, but in cantons (
pagi), consisting
of an indefinite number of
vici or homesteads,
with one common place of shelter (
arx or
castellum) in time of war, sometimes itself
called
pagus. The term
pagus fell out of use, being replaced by more precise names, but
vicus continued to denote a hamlet or
similar group of buildings, attached to a town; hence the word is often
translated “village.” Cf. the Lex Rubria and Lex Julia in
C. I. L. 1.205, 206.
2. In towns the word
vicus means “a
street” or “quarter” (cf. Varro,
L. L.
5.145: “in oppido vici a via, quod ex utraque parte viae sunt
aedificia” ). Strictly speaking, it seems to have denoted a block
of buildings bounded by the streets (
plateae）
and the alleys (
angiportus), but it was
doubtless used with some latitude (Jordan,
Top. Roms, ii. p.
80). Cf.
vicus Tuscus, &c.
3. According to tradition, Servius Tullius divided the city of Rome into four
tribes, each subdivided into
vici, while the
country tribes were divided into
pagi; and when
Augustus in B.C. 8 redivided the city into fourteen regions, each region was
still subdivided into
vici (
Suet. Aug. 30;
D. C.
55.8). It is not always possible to separate our information as to
the earlier
vici from that which bears upon the
later ones; but there is no reason to believe that any important changes
were made; and perhaps Mommsen is right in regarding the redivision as
mainly intended to organise better the worship of the Lares Compitales. The
vici in the different
regiones varied in number: the total under Augustus was,
according to Pliny (
Plin. Nat. 3.66), 265:
under Constantine there must have been at least 307. The
vici were administered by
magistri
vicorum (
vico magistri), elected,
four for each
vicus (cf. the
basis
Capitolina in
C. I. L. 6.975, ib. 445 ff.), from
the commons, mostly
liberti: it is probable
that the four took turns to act as
magister.
Hadrian fixed the number of
magistri vicorum at
48 for each region, irrespective of the number of
vici; and this is the number which we find in the Notitia of the
time of Constantine (Jordan, 2.541 if.).
Besides the oversight of the drains and fountains and a general police
supervision under the aediles, the chief duty of the
magistri vicorum consisted in providing for the worship of
the Lares Compitales, at the
sacella usually
erected at the crossways. These formed part of the popular religion, and
were maintained by the
collegia compitalicia:
but they acquired increased importance after Augustus added to. the two
Lares Compitales the Genius Augusti (
Suet. Aug.
31), fixed the festival, which previously had been
feriae conceptivae, for two days in May and August (probably
the Kalends), and granted the
magistri the
privilege of appearing in the toga praetexta attended by two lictors. (Cf.
Marquardt, 3.200; Ascon.
in Pis. p. 7.) The Compitalia were
probably identical with the Laralia (cf. Mommsen,
C. I. L. i.
p. 393); but quite distinct from the Paganalia.
Our information as to the distribution of the
vici among the
regiones is mainly
derived from two descriptions of Rome under Constantine, the earlier (A.D.
334) commonly called the
Notitia, the later
(A.D. 357) the
Curiosum urbis Romae
regionum xiv.: the former was at one time
ascribed (in an interpolated form) to a nonexistent scholar P. Victor; the
latter with as. little reason to Sex. Rufus.
[
A.S.W]
