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[German version] Stone inscription, slightly damaged, of the 2nd half of the 6th cent. BC, discovered in 1977 at Satricum (Latium) beneath the Temple of Mater Matuta, which was constructed around 500 BC. The inscription, one of the earliest in the Latin language, is readily legible: - - -iei steterai Popliosio Valesiosio/suodales Mamartei (‘dedicated by the companions of Publius Valerius to Mars’). The incomplete beginning is probably to be read as [med h]ei (‘me here’), the object thus addressing the reader (see [1]; less likely Sal]iei, see [2], or Iun]ei, see [3]). The inscriptio…

[German version] Municipal law from the time of Domitian (end of the 1st cent. AD) for the Latin municipium Flavium Salpensanum, modern Facialcazar near Utrera (province of Seville) in southern Spain, of which a bronze tablet with chs. 21-29 was found together with the lex Malacitana (today in the Archaeological National Museum of Madrid) in 1861. The text is, with some differences, identical to the corresponding chs. in the lex Irnitana . Galsterer, Hartmut (Bonn) Bibliography CIL II 1963 ILS 6088 H. Freis, Histor. Inschr. zur röm. Kaiserzeit, 1984, no. 59 (German translation).

[German version] VI, which denote an object as a votive offering to a deity (or deities) by one or more persons, are among the oldest inscriptions; they may express gratitude for victory in a battle or for a merchant ship that has returned safely home. VI were often made because of a vow taken in a moment of danger, hence the formula VSLM, votum soluit libens merito ('he has honoured the vow of his own free will and according to custom'). The inscription medium was either a stone pedestal (such as for statues) or the dedicated object itself (for instance, helmets or chest ar…

[German version] ('Derivation'). In contrast to the Greek poleis and the independent local communities of pre-Roman Italy, a distinction existed in the Hellenistic kingdoms and thereafter in the Roman Empire between the sense of belonging to the greater political unit and the feeling of membership of the community in which one was born and lived. The former was mostly called politeía in Greek and civitas (B.) in Latin, and for the latter, primarily in Ptolemaic Egypt, the Greek expression ἡ ἰδία <κώμη> ( hē idía <kṓmē>, 'one's own village') was common. In Rome from the Imperial …

[German version] Conciliabulum (from concilium) in the legal meaning is an assembly place or, more often, just the venue ( locus ubi in concilium convenitur, Fest. p. 33) at which citizens gathered for the proclamation of laws, levying etc. The word describes a settlement with elementary self-government in the territory of one of the tribus rusticae. In the context of the ager Romanus we hear of per fora et conciliabula (Liv. 25,22,4; 39,14,7 etc.), which -- as in the lex Poetelia of 358 -- provides an excellent parallel to the nundinae in the city of Rome. In late Republican laws it…

[German version] A. Meaning of the word The etymological connection of Latin provincia (‘province’) with pro- vincere (‘defeat beforehand’) in Festus (253: “provinciae appellantur quod populus Romanus eas provicit, i.e. ante vicit”) is not plausible and probably based on a popular etymology. Likewise, Isidore’s explanation of provinciae as overseas territory ‘far from’ ( procul) Italy is no more convincing (Isid. Orig. 14,5,19: “procul positas regiones provincias appellaverunt”). The most probable link is with proto-Germanic * fro, ‘lord’ [1. 377 f.]. However, the meaning o…

[German version] Among the documents left behind by Augustus and read out in the Senate after his death in AD 14 was an index rerum a se gestarum (‘Report of Actions’), which was then published on two bronze tablets set up in front of the Mausoleum Augusti (Suet. Aug. 101,4; Cass. Dio 56,33 and R.Gest.div.Aug. prooem.; on the setting up of the tablets and their reconstruction see [8. 6 fig.]). A copy of this text with a Greek translation was attached to the temple of the imperial cult in Ancyra (modern Ankara), the capita…

[German version] Bronze tablet from Lugdunum (modern Lyon) with part of a speech by the emperor Claudius [III 1] in the Senate in which as censor in AD 47/8 he supports the wish of Gaulish nobles to be accepted into the Senate. Comparison of the original text (CIL XIII 1668 = ILS 212) with the version in Tacitus (Ann. 11,23-25) is revealing of the latter's way of working. Galsterer, Hartmut (Bonn) Bibliography H. Freis, Historische Inschriften zur römischen Kaiserzeit, 21994, no. 34 (German translation)  F. Vittinghoff, Zur Rede des Kaisers Claudius über die Aufnahme von 'Gall…

[German version] Rome's allies in Italy and, in exceptional cases, also communities and individuals outside Italy were already known as socii in antiquity. The socii in Italy were listed in the formula togatorum, a schedule which laid down the extent of the obligation to provide military contributions, as communities from which Rome was accustomed to require the provision of soldiers for the Roman army (' socii nominis(ve) Latini quibus <sc. Romani> ex formula milites in terra Italia imperare solent': lex agraria of 111 BC, FIRA 1, no. 8, ll. 21 and 50). The criterion for m…

[German version] [1] Governor of Pannonia and Moesia, proclaimed emperor rather than Gallienus in 260 AD Governor of Pannonia and Moesia, proclaimed emperor rather than  Gallienus in AD 260 by the Moesian legions after  Valerianus was captured by the Persians and the Sarmatians threatened to invade (S HA Tyr. Trig. 9,1; Aur. Vict. Caes. 33,2; Zon. 12,24, p. 143 D). Gallienus' cavalry leader  Aureolus defeated him at Mursa near Sirmium. I. lost his life while fleeing (Zon. loc. cit..; Aur. Vict. Caes. 32,2; Eutr. 9,8,1; Oros. 7,22,10; Chron. min. 1, 521,45 Mommsen). Franke, Thomas (Boch…

[German version] Flavian copy of the municipal law of the Caesarean colonia Iulia Genetiva in Urso, of which four almost complete tablets were found in 1870/71, and an additional 12 fragments were found in and near Osuna (province of Seville) in Southern Spain (today in the Archaeological National Museum of Madrid) in 1925. Originally the law probably comprised nine tablets with three or five columns of text each and just over 140 sections ( rubricae), of which 61-82, 91-106 and 123-134 are almost entirely extant and several others are preserved in fragments. The charter of the colony …

[German version] A. Etymologie and Definition It is possible that the Latin term municipes predates that of municipium. In the view of historians such as Varro (Ling. 5,179), the former is derived from munia (or respectively munera) capere, ‘the undertaking of duties’; the explanation ‘the receiving of gifts’ in [7. 26] has to be rejected in the same way as the ancient interpretation by Gellius (16,13,7) that municipium was to be seen as munus honorarium (‘honorary privilege’). Varro referred to obligations by Roman citizens such as military service and payment of taxes which the munici…

[German version] (Pl. pagi, etymologically related to pangere and pax; 'region with fixed borders'). The Latin pagus refers to the non-urbanized 'district', whose population lived in individual farms and villages ( vici; see vicus ), possibly with one or more oppida ( oppidum ) serving as a refuge; the pagus was the customary form of settlement for many Italian tribes, esp. the Oscan population of the mountainous regions of Central Italy [4] and among the Celts of Upper Italy [2]. The Romans used pagus as the designation for the subdivision of an urban territory. The pagi in the Roman Con…

[German version] Bronze inscription from Banasa (in Mauretania Tingitana) with copies ( exempla) of three documents and a list of 12 witnesses, probably members of the imperial consilium. It deals with a conferment of citizenship under Marcus Aurelius on 6 July AD 177: at his own request, Iulianus, a princeps of the Zegrensi tribe, and his family are granted Roman citizenship for extraordinary service ( maxima merita), without prejudice to his tribal rights ( salvo iure gentis). The TB is important evidence of the conditions for conferring citizenship at the end of the …

[German version] A. Definition A colonia was a settlement of citizens (with the addition of a greater or lesser proportion of non-citizens) for the military and political securing of Roman rule, later for providing for veterans and occasionally the Roman proletariat, almost always in a conquered city, the citizens of which would also be involved in the colony in some way (cf. the definition in Serv. Aen. 1,12). Galsterer, Hartmut (Bonn) [German version] B. Founding and constitution Coloniae are founded on the basis of the people's law by public officials, mainly IIIviri coloniae deduc…

(Singular vici magister). Elected leaders of vici (Vicus) in the city of Rome and in Italian cities. [German version] I. Rome VM are recorded as early as the Republic; their identification with the magistri collegiorum mentioned in Asconius (p. 6 Clark) cannot be doubted ( pace [2]). Their duties were the cult of the Lares Compitales (Lares [1] C) and organizing the Compitalia on 1 January. In the late Republic they were involved in the political activities of the collegia [1] and for a number of years were banned, until Clodius [I 4] permitted them again. They presumably…

[German version] Block of black marble found at Rome in 1899 during excavations in the Forum Romanum in front of the Curia Iulia. It is probably the niger lapis in comitio from Fest. 184 L. The upper section of the stone is damaged; on five sides it bears a fragmentary inscription, difficult to read and dating from the (early?) 6th cent. BC (probably the lex sacra of the Volcanal, the surrounding sacred precinct), which mentions a ‘king’ ( recei), his ‘herald’ ( calator) and iouxmenta (draught animals? carts?). This may be the inscription which Dionysius of Halicarnassus (Ant. …

[German version] The pomerium was the line, important in religious law, which at Rome and its colonies ( coloniae ) divided the urbs from the ager, i.e. the city in the strictest sense from its surrounding territories. Even in antiquity, the meaning of the word was obscure. According to point of view, it was etymologically explained as the line 'behind' ( post or pone murum) or 'in front of' ( promoerium) the city wall (Varro Ling. 5,143 and Gell. NA 13,14,1 versus Fest. 295), but neither etymology is likely to be tenable The establishment of the pomerium constituted the climax of a city f…

[German version] Alleged treaty from the time of king Tarquinius Superbus (end 6th cent. BC), which was still extant in the Augustan period on a shield covered in cowhide in the temple of Semo Sancus; documented in Dion. Hal. Ant. Rom. 4,58,4 and on coins of two Antistii (family from Gabii, C.  Antistius [II 7] Vetus and C. Antistius Reginus) from the Augustan period: FOEDUS P.R. CUM GABINIS (RIC2 1, 68 no. 363 and 73 no. 411). Main content was an isopoliteia between Rome and Gabii. According to Varro (Ling. 5,33) the ager Gabinus represented an exceptional feature of augural law between the age…

[German version] Ceremonial treaty of peace and friendship between Rome and another state which is placed under the protection of the gods. By contrast to a truce ( indutiae) the foedus was drawn up for the long term ( pia et aeterna pax). The result of the foedus was a   societas or an   amicitia , Rome's partners were   foederati ,   socii or amici (the terms are not strictly differentiated). Originally the foedera were probably signed by the   fetiales in the form of a sponsio (Liv. 1,24); later their role was confined to supervising the religious formalities. The foedus was usually signed by…