Dictionary of Greek and Roman antiquities. Ed. by William Smith. Illustrated by numerous engravings on wood.

318 COLONIA. COLONIA.
strangers to one another, without any head, with- or quattuorviri, so called, as the numbers might
out any bond of union, were suddenly brought to- vary, whose functions may be compared with those
gether on one spot, " lumerns magis quam colonia " of the consulate at Rome before the establishment
(Tacit. Ann. xiv. 27). And on the occasion of the of the praetorship. The name duumviri seems to
mutiny of the legions in Pannonia, upon the ac- have been the most common. Their principal
cession of Tiberius, it was one ground of complaint, duties were the administration of justice, and acthat the soldiers, after serving thirty or forty cordingly we find on inscriptions "Duumviri J.
years, were separated, and dispersed in remote D." (suri dicmndo), " Quattuorviri J. D." They
parts; where they received, under the name of a were styled magistratus pre-eminently, though the
grant of lands (per nomen acgroruMn), swampy tracts name magistratus was properly and originally the
and barren mountains. (Tacit. Ann. i. 17.) most general name for all persons who filled similar
It remains briefly to state what was the internal situations. The name consul also occurs inl illconstitution of a colonia. scriptions to denote this chief magistracy; and
In the later times of the republic, the Roman even dictator and praetor occur under the empire
state consisted of two distinct organised parts, and under the republic. The office of the duumviri
Italy and the Provinces. " Italy consisted of a lasted a year. Savigny shows that under the regreat number of republics (in the Roman sense of public the jurisdictio of the duumviri in civil
the term), whose citizens, after the Italian war, be- matters was unlimited, and that it was only under'
came mlembers of the sovereign people. The coin- the empire that it was restricted in the manner
munities of these citizens were subjects of the which appears from the extant Roman law.
Roman people, yet the internal administration of In some Italian towns there was a praefectus
the communities belonged to themselves. This juri dicundo; he was in the place of, and not cofree municipal constitution was the fundamental existent with, duumviri. The duumviri were, as
characteristic of Italy; and the same remark will we have seen, originally chosen by the people;
apply to both principal classes of such constitu- but the praefectus was appointed annually in
tions, municipia, and coloniae. That distinction Rome (Livy, xxvi. 16), and sent to the town
which made a place into a praefctura, is men- called a praefectura, which might be either a mutioned afterwards; and fora, conciliabula, castella, nicipium or a colonias, for it was only in the matter
are merely smaller communities, with an incom- of the praefectus that a town called a praefectura
p!lete organisation." (Savigny.) As in Rome, so differed from other Italian towns. Capua, which
in the colonies, the popular assembly had originally was taken by the Romans in the second Punic
the sovereign power; they chose the magistrates, war, was made a praefectura. (Vell. ii. 44, and
and could even make laws. (Cic. De Leg. iii. 16.) the note of Reimarus on Dion Cassius, xxxviii. 7.)
When the popular assemblies became a mere form Arpinum is called both a municipium and a praein Rome, and the elections were transferred by fectura (Cic. ad Fanz. xiii. 11; Festus, s. v.
Tiberius to the senate, the same thing happened Praefectura); and Cicero, a native of this place,
in the colonies, whose senates then acquired what- obtained the highest honours that Rome could
ever power had once belonged to the community. confer.
The common name of this senate was ordo de- The censor, curator, or quinquennalis, all which
curionum; in later times, simply ordo and curia; names denote the same functionary, was also a
the members of it were decuriones or curiales. municipal magistrate, and corresponded to the
(Dig. 50. tit. 2. De Decurionibus, &c.) Thus, censor at Rome, and in some cases, perhaps, to
in the later ages, curia is opposed to senatus, the quaestor also. Censors are mentioned il Livy
the former being the senate of a colony, and the (xxix. 15) as magistrates of the twelve Latin
latter the senate of Rome. But the terms senatus colonies. The quinquennales were sometimes
and senator were also applied to the senate and duumviri, sometimes quattuorviri; but they are
members of the senate of a colony, both by his- always carefully distinguished from the duumvirii
torians, in inscriptions, and in public records; as, for and quattuorviri J. D.; and their fuictions are
instance, in the Heracleotic Tablet, which contained clearly shown by Savigny to have been those of
a Roman lex. After the decline of the popular censors. They held their office for one year, and
assemblies, the senate had the whole internal ad- during the four intermediate years the functions
ministration of a city, conjointly with the magis- were not exercised. The office of censor or quintratus; but only a decurio could be a magistratus, quennalis was higher in rank than that of the
and the choice was made by the decuriones. duumviri J,D., and it could only be filled by those
Augunstns seems to have laid the foundation for who had discharged the other offices of the munithis practical change in the constitution of the cipality.
colonies in Italy. All the citizens had the right For a more complete account of the organisation
of voting at Rome; but such a privilege would be of these municipalities, and of their fate under the
useless to most of the citizens c.n account of their empire, the reader is referred to an admirable
distance from Rome. Augustus (Sueton. c. 46) chapter in Savigny (GIesehichlte des Iinm. Rec/its,
devised a new method of voting: the decuriones &c. vol. i. p. 16s &c.).
sent the votes in writing, and under seal, to The terms municipium and municipes require
Rome; but the decuriones -only voted. Though explanation in connection with the present subject,
this was a matter of no importance after Tiberius and the explanation of th-m will render the nature
had transferred the elections at Rome from the of a praefectura still clearer, One kind of municipopular assemblies to the senate, this measure of pium was a body of persons who weree not (Festls,
Augustus would clearly prepare the way for the s. v. Municipiuims) Reman citizens, but possessed all
pre-eminence of the decuriones, and the decline of the rights of Roman citizens except the suffiagiumn
the popular power. and the honores. Btt the communities enumerated
The highest magistratus of a colonia were the as examples of this kind or municipium are the
duunmviri (Cic. Agr. Leq. ii. 34, iad Attic. ii. 6), Fundani, Formiani, Cumani, Acerrani., Lmanvini,