A Study of the Topography and Municipal History of Praeneste Part 4

Fernique (etude sur Preneste, p. 119) thinks this the building the ruins of which are of brick and called a temple, near the Ponte dell'

Ospedalato, but this is impossible. The date of the brick work is all much later than the date a.s.signed to it by him, and much later than the name itself implies.

SEMINARIA A PORTA TRIUMPHALE, C.I.L., XIV, 2850.

This building was just inside the gate which was in the center of the south wall of Praeneste, directly below the ancient forum and basilica.

SOLARIUM, C.I.L., XIV, 3323.

SPOLIARIUM, C.I.L., XIV, 3014.

See Amphitheatrum.

TEMPLUM SARAPIS, C.I.L., XIV, 2901.

TEMPLUM HERCULIS, C.I.L., XIV, 2891, 2892; Not. d. Scavi, 11 (1882-1883), p. 48.

This temple was a mile or more distant from the city, in the territory now known as Bocce di Rodi, and was situated on the little road which made a short cut between the two great roads, the Praenestina and the Labicana.

SACRA VIA, Not. d. Scavi, Ser. 5, 4 (1896), p. 49.

In the discussions on the temple and the forum, pages 42 and 54, I think it is proved that the Sacra Via of Praeneste was the ancient road which extended from the Porta Triumphalis up through the Forum, past the Basilica and round behind it, to the entrance into the precinct and temple of Fortuna Primigenia.

VIA, C.I.L., XIV, 3001, 3343. Viam sternenda(m).

In inscription No. 3343 we have supra viam parte dex(tra), and from the provenience of the stone we get a proof that the old road which led out through the Porta S. Francesco was so well known that it was called simply "via."

CHAPTER II.

THE MUNIc.i.p.aL GOVERNMENT OF PRAENESTE.

Praeneste was already a rich and prosperous community, when Rome was still fighting for a precarious existence. The rapid development, however, of the Latin towns, and the necessity of mutual protection and advancement soon brought Rome and Praeneste into a league with the other towns of Latium. Praeneste because of her position and wealth was the haughtiest member of the newly made confederation, and with the more rapid growth of Rome became her most hated rival. Later, when Rome pa.s.sed from a position of first among equals to that of mistress of her former allies, Praeneste was her proudest and most turbulent subject.

From the earliest times, when the overland trade between Upper Etruria, Magna Graecia, and Lower Etruria came up the Liris valley, and touching Praeneste and Tibur crossed the river Tiber miles above Rome, that energetic little settlement looked with longing on the city that commanded the splendid valley between the Sabine and Volscian mountains.

Rome turned her conquests in the direction of her longings, but could get no further than Gabii. Praeneste and Tibur were too strongly situated, and too closely connected with the fierce mountaineers of the interior,[158] and Rome was glad to make treaties with them on equal terms.

Rome, however, made the most of her opportunities. Her trade up and down the river increased, and at the same time brought her in touch with other nations more and more. Her political importance grew rapidly, and it was not long before she began to a.s.sume the primacy among the towns of the Latin league. This a.s.sumption of a leaders.h.i.+p practically hers already was disputed by only one city. This was Praeneste, and there can be no doubt but that if Praeneste had possessed anything approaching the same commercial facilities in way of communication by water she would have been Rome's greatest rival. As late as 374 B.C. Praeneste was alone an opponent worthy of Rome.[159]

As head of a league of nine cities,[160] and allied with Tibur, which also headed a small confederacy,[161] Praeneste felt herself strong enough to defy the other cities of the league,[162] and in fact even to play fast and loose with Rome, as Rome kept or transgressed the stipulations of their agreements. Rome, however, took advantage of Praeneste at every opportunity. She a.s.sumed control of some of her land in 338 B.C., on the ground that Praeneste helped the Gauls in 390;[163]

she showed her jealousy of Praeneste by refusing to allow Quintus Lutatius Cerco to consult the lots there during the first Punic war.[164] This jealousy manifested itself again in the way the leader of a contingent from Praeneste was treated by a Roman dictator[165] in 319 B.C. But while these isolated outbursts of jealousy showed the ill feeling of Rome toward Praeneste, there is yet a stronger evidence of the fact that Praeneste had been in early times more than Rome's equal, for through the entire subsequent history of the aggrandizement of Rome at the expense of every other town in the Latin League, there runs a bitterness which finds expression in the slurs cast upon Praeneste, an ever-recurring reminder of the centuries of ancient grudge. Often in Roman literature Praeneste is mentioned as the typical country town. Her inhabitants are laughed at because of their bad p.r.o.nunciation, despised and pitied because of their characteristic combination of pride and rusticity. Yet despite the dwindling fortunes of the town she was able to keep a treaty with Rome on nearly equal terms until 90 B.C., the year in which the Julian law was pa.s.sed.[166] Praeneste scornfully refused Roman citizens.h.i.+p in 216 B.C., when it was offered.[167] This refusal Rome never forgot nor forgave. No Praenestine families seem to have been taken into the Roman patriciate, as were some from Alba Longa,[168] nor did Praeneste ever send any citizens of note to Rome, who were honored as was Cato from Tusculum,[169] although one branch of the gens Anicia[170] did gain some reputation in imperial times. Rome and Praeneste seemed destined to be ever at cross purposes, and their ancient rivalry grew to be a traditional dislike which remained mutual and lasting.

The continuance of the commercial and military rivalry because of Praeneste's strategic position as key of Rome, and the religious rivalry due to the great fame of Fortuna Primigenia at Praeneste, are continuous and striking historical facts even down into the middle ages. Once in 1297 and again in 1437 the forces of the Pope destroyed the town to crush the great Colonna family which had made Praeneste a stronghold against the power of Rome.

There are a great many reasons why Praeneste offers the best opportunity for a study of the munic.i.p.al officers of a town of the Latin league. She kept a practical autonomy longer than any other of the league towns with the exception of Tibur, but she has a much more varied history than Tibur. The inscriptions of Praeneste offer especial advantages, because they are numerous and cover a wide range. The great number of the old pigne inscriptions gives a better list of names of the citizens of the second century B.C. and earlier than can be found in any other Latin town.[171] Praeneste also has more munic.i.p.al fasti preserved than any other city, and this fact alone is sufficient reason for a study of munic.i.p.al officers. In fact, the position which Praeneste held during the rise and fall of the Latin League has distinct differences from that of any other town in the confederation, and these differences are to be seen in every stage of her history, whether as an ally, a municipium, or a colonia.

As an ally of Rome, Praeneste did not have a curtailed treaty as did Alba Longa,[172] but one on equal terms (foedus aequum), such as was accorded to a sovereign state. This is proved by the right of exile which both Praeneste and Tibur still retained until as late as 90 B.C.[173]

As a municipium, the rights of Praeneste were shared by only one other city in the league. She was not a municipium which, like Lanuvium and Tusculum,[174] kept a separate state, but whose citizens, although called Roman citizens, were without right to vote, nor, on the other hand, was she in the cla.s.s of municipia of which Aricia is a type, towns which had no vote in Rome, but were governed from there like a city ward.[175] Praeneste, on the contrary, belonged to yet a third cla.s.s.

This was the most favored cla.s.s of all; in fact, equality was implicit in the agreement with Rome, which was to the effect that when these cities joined the Roman state, the inhabitants were to be, first of all, citizens of their own states.[176] Praeneste shared this extraordinary agreement with Rome with but one other Latin city, Tibur. The question whether or not Praeneste was ever a municipium in the technical and const.i.tutional sense of the word is apart from the present discussion, and will be taken up later.[177]

As a colony, Praeneste has a different history from that of any other of the colonies founded by Sulla. Because of her stubborn defence, and her partisans.h.i.+p for Marius, her walls were razed and her citizens murdered in numbers almost beyond belief. Yet at a later time, Sulla with a revulsion of kindness quite characteristic of him, rebuilt the town, enlarged it, and was most generous in every way. The sentiment which attached to the famous antiquity and renown of Praeneste was too strong to allow it to lie in ruins. Further, in colonies the most characteristic officers were the quattuorviri. Praeneste, again different, shows no trace of such officers.

Indeed, at all times during the history of Latium, Praeneste clearly had a city government different from that of any other in the old Latin League. For example, before the Social War[178] both Praeneste and Tibur had aediles and quaestors, but Tibur also had censors,[179] Praeneste did not. Lavinium[180] and Praeneste were alike in that they both had praetors. There were dictators in Aricia,[181] Lanuvium,[182]

Nomentum,[183] and Tusculum,[184] but no trace of a dictator in Praeneste.

The first mention of a magistrate from Praeneste, a praetor, in 319 B.C, is due to a joke of the Roman dictator Papirius Cursor.[185] The praetor was in camp as leader of the contingent of allies from Praeneste,[186]

and the fact that a praetor was in command of the troops sent from allied towns[187] implies that another praetor was at the head of affairs at home. Another and stronger proof of the government by two praetors is afforded by the later duoviral magistracy, and the lack of friction under such an arrangement.

There is no reason to believe that the Latin towns took as models for their early munic.i.p.al officers, the consuls at Rome, rather than to believe that the reverse was the case. In fact, the change in Rome to the name consuls from praetors,[188] with the continuance of the name praetor in the towns of the Latin League, would rather go to prove that the Romans had given their two chief magistrates a distinctive name different from that in use in the neighboring towns, because the more rapid growth in Rome of magisterial functions demanded official terminology, as the Romans began their "Progressive Subdivision of the Magistracy."[189] Livy says that in 341 B.C. Latium had two praetors,[190] and this shows two things: first, that two praetors were better adapted to circ.u.mstances than one dictator; second, that the majority of the towns had praetors, and had had them, as chief magistrates, and not dictators,[191] and that such an arrangement was more satisfactory. The Latin League had had a dictator[192] at its head at some time,[193] and the fact that these two praetors are found at the head of the league in 341 B.C. shows the deference to the more progressive and influential cities of the league, where praetors were the regular and well known munic.i.p.al chief magistrates. Before Praeneste was made a colony by Sulla, the governing body was a senate,[194] and the munic.i.p.al officers were praetors,[195] aediles,[196] and quaestors,[197] as we know certainly from inscriptions. In the literature, a praetor is mentioned in 319 B.C.,[198] in 216 B.C.,[199]

and again in 173 B.C. implicitly, in a statement concerning the magistrates of an allied city.[200] In fact nothing in the inscriptions or in the literature gives a hint at any change in the political relations between Praeneste and Rome down to 90 B.C., the year in which the lex Iulia was pa.s.sed. If a dictator was ever at the head of the city government in Praeneste, there are none of the proofs remaining, such as are found in the towns of the Alban Hills, in Etruria, and in the medix tuticus of the Sabellians. The fact that no trace of the dictator remains either in Tibur or Praeneste seems to imply that these two towns had better opportunities for a more rapid development, and that both had praetors at a very early period.[201]

However strongly the weight of probabilities make for proof in the endeavor to find out what the munic.i.p.al government of Praeneste was, there are a certain number of facts that can now be stated positively.

Before 90 B.C. the administrative officers of Praeneste were two praetors,[202] who had the regular aediles and quaestors as a.s.sistants.

These officers were elected by the citizens of the place. There was also a senate, but the qualifications and duties of its members are uncertain. Some information, however, is to be derived from the fact that both city officers and senate were composed in the main of the local n.o.bility.[203]

An important epoch in the history of Praeneste begins with the year 91 B.C. In this year the dispute over the extension of the franchise to Italy began again, and the failure of the measure proposed by the tribune M. Livius Drusus led to an Italian revolt, which soon a.s.sumed a serious aspect. To mitigate or to cripple this revolt (the so-called Social or Marsic war), a bill was offered and pa.s.sed in 90 B.C. This was the famous law (lex Iulia) which applied to all Italian states that had not revolted, or had stopped their revolt, and it offered Roman citizens.h.i.+p (civitas) to all such states, with, however, the remarkable provision, IF THEY DESIRED IT.[204] At all events, this law either did not meet the needs of the occasion, or some of the allied states showed no eagerness to accept Rome's offer. Within a few months after the lex Iulia had gone into effect, which was late in the year 90, the lex Plautia Papiria was pa.s.sed, which offered Roman citizens.h.i.+p to the citizens (cives et incolae) of the federated cities, provided they handed in their names within sixty days to the city praetor in Rome.[205]

There is no unanimity of opinion as to the status of Praeneste in 90 B.C. The reason is twofold. It has never been shown whether Praeneste at this time belonged technically to the Latins (Latini) or to the allies (foederati), and it is not known under which of the two laws just mentioned she took Roman citizens.h.i.+p. In 338 B.C., after the close of the Latin war, Praeneste and Tibur made either a special treaty[206]

with Rome, as seems most likely, or one in which the old status quo was reaffirmed. In 268 B.C. Praeneste lost one right of federated cities, that of coinage,[207] but continued to hold the right of a sovereign city, that of exile (ius exilii) in 171 B.C.,[208] in common with Tibur and Naples,[209] and on down to the year 90 at any rate (see note 9). It is to be remembered too that in the year 216 B.C., after the heroic deeds of the Praenestine cohort at Casilinum, the inhabitants of Praeneste were offered Roman citizens.h.i.+p, and that they refused it.[210]

Now if the citizens of Praeneste accepted Roman citizens.h.i.+p in 90 B.C., under the conditions of the Julian law (lex Iulia de civitate sociis danda), then they were still called allies (socii) at that time.[211]

But that the provision in the law, namely, citizens.h.i.+p, if the allies desired it, did not accomplish its purpose, is clear from the immediate pa.s.sage in 89 of the lex Plautia-Papiria.[212] Probably there was some change of phraseology which was obnoxious in the Iulia. The traditional touchiness and pride of the Praenestines makes it sure that they resisted Roman citizens.h.i.+p as long as they could, and it seems more likely that it was under the provision of the Plautia-Papiria than under those of the Iulia that separate citizens.h.i.+p in Praeneste became a thing of the past. Two years later, in 87 B.C., when, because of the troubles between the two consuls Cinna and Octavius, Cinna had been driven from Rome, he went out directly to Praeneste and Tibur, which had lately been received into citizens.h.i.+p,[213] tried to get them to revolt again from Rome, and collected money for the prosecution of the war.

This not only shows that Praeneste had lately received Roman citizens.h.i.+p, but implies also that Rome thus far had not dared to a.s.sume any control of the city, or the consul would not have felt so sure of his reception.

WAS PRAENESTE A MUNICIPIUM?

Just what relation Praeneste bore to Rome between 90 or 89 B.C., when she accepted Roman citizens.h.i.+p, and 82 B.C. when Sulla made her a colony, is still an unsettled question. Was Praeneste made a municipium by Rome, did Praeneste call herself a municipium, or, because the rights which she enjoyed and guarded as an ally (civitas foederata) had been so restricted and curtailed, was she called and considered a municipium by Rome, but allowed to keep the empty substance of the name of an allied state?

During the development which followed the gradual extension of Roman citizens.h.i.+p to the inhabitants of Italy, because of the increase of the rights of autonomy in the colonies, and the limitation of the rights formerly enjoyed by the cities which had belonged to the old confederation or league (foederati), there came to be small difference between a colonia and a municipium. While the nominal difference seems to have still held in legal parlance, in the literature the two names are often interchanged.[214] Mommsen-Marquardt say[215] that in 90 B.C.

under the conditions of the lex Iulia Praeneste became a municipium of the type which kept its own citizens.h.i.+p (ut municipes essent suae cuiusque civitatis).[216] But if this were true, then Praeneste would have come under the jurisdiction of the city praetor (praetor urba.n.u.s) in Rome, and there would be praefects to look after cases for him.

Praeneste has a very large body of inscriptions which extend from the earliest to the latest times, and which are wider in range than those of any other town in Latium outside Rome. But no inscription mentions a praefect and here under the circ.u.mstances the argumentum ex silentio is of real constructive value, and const.i.tutes circ.u.mstantial evidence of great weight.[217] Praeneste had lost her ancient rights one after the other, but it is sure that she clung the longest to the separate property right. Now the property in a municipium is not considered as Roman, a result of the old sovereign state idea, as given by the ius Quiritium and ius Gabinorum, although Mommsen says this had no real practical value.[218] So whether Praeneste received Roman citizens.h.i.+p in 90 or in 89 B.C. the spirit of her past history makes it certain that she demanded a clause which gave specific rights to the old federated states, such as had always been in her treaty with Rome.[219] There seems to have been no such clause in the lex Iulia of 90 B.C., and this fact gives still another reason, in addition to the ones mentioned, to conclude that Praeneste probably took citizens.h.i.+p in 89 under the lex Plautia-Papiria. The extreme cruelty which Sulla used toward Praeneste,[220] and the great amount of its land[221] that he took for his soldiers when he colonized the place, show that Sulla not only punished the city because it had sided with Marius, but that the feeling of a Roman magistrate was uppermost, and that he was now avenging traditional grievances, as well as punis.h.i.+ng recent obstreperousness.

There seems to be, however, very good reasons for saying that Praeneste never became a municipium in the strict legal sense of the word. First, the particular officials who belong to a municipium, praefects and quattuorvirs, are not found at all;[222] second, the use of the word municipium in literature in connection with Praeneste is general, and means simply "town";[223] third, the fact that Praeneste, along with Tibur, had clung so jealously to the t.i.tle of federated state (civitas foederata) from some uncertain date to the time of the Latin rebellion, and more proudly than ever from 338 to 90 B.C., makes it very unlikely that so great a downfall of a city's pride would be pa.s.sed over in silence; fourth and last, the fact that the Praenestines asked the emperor Tiberius to give them the status of a municipium,[224] which he did,[225] but it seems (see note 60) with no change from the regular city officials of a colony,[226] shows clearly that the Praenestines simply took advantage of the fact that Tiberius had just recovered from a severe illness at Praeneste[227] to ask him for what was merely an empty honor. It only salved the pride of the Praenestines, for it gave them a name which showed a former sovereign federated state, and not the name of a colony planted by the Romans.[228] The cogency of this fourth reason will bear elaboration. Praeneste would never have asked for a return to the name municipium if it had not meant something. At the very best she could not have been a real municipium with Roman citizens.h.i.+p longer than seven years, 89 to 82 B.C., and that at a very unsettled time, nor would an enforced taking of the status of a municipium, not to mention the ridiculously short period which it would have lasted, have been anything to look back to with such pride that the inhabitants would ask the emperor Tiberius for it again. What they did ask for was the name municipium as they used and understood it, for it meant to them everything or anything but colonia.

Let us now sum up the munic.i.p.al history of Praeneste down to 82 B.C.

when she was made a Roman colony by Sulla. Praeneste, from the earliest times, like Rome, Tusculum, and Aricia, was one of the chief cities in the territory known as Ancient Latium. Like these other cities, Praeneste made herself head of a small league,[229] but unlike the others, offers nothing but comparative probability that she was ever ruled by kings or dictators. So of prime importance not only in the study of the munic.i.p.al officers of Praeneste, but also in the question of Praeneste's relations.h.i.+p to Rome, is the fact that the evidence from first to last is for praetors as the chief executive officers of the Praenestine state (respublica), with their regular attendant officers, aediles and quaestors; all of whom probably stood for office in the regular succession (cursus honorum). Above these officers was a senate, an administrative or advisory body. But although Praeneste took Roman citizens.h.i.+p either in 90 or 89 B.C.,[56] it seems most likely that she was not legally termed a municipium, but that she came in under some special clause, or with some particular understanding, whereby she kept her autonomy, at least in name. Praeneste certainly considered herself a federate city, on the old terms of equality with Rome, she demanded and partially retained control of her own land, and preserved her freedom from Rome in the matter of city elections and magistrates.