called Della Spezia, and founded the city of Luna. They likewise sent colonies to the islands of Elba and Corsica, for the Etruscans were a commercial as well as agricultural people; they navigated the sea, and in the sixth century B.C. they defeated the Phocæans, and drove them out of Corsica. The Etruscans contributed to civilize Italy by means of their settlements; but, unlike Rome, they did not keep them united under a central power.

The Sabini, an agricultural and pastoral people, lived in the Apennines of Central Italy, and occupied part of the modern Abruzzi: they sent out colonies in very early times to other parts of Italy. It was a custom common among many of the old Italians, after the lapse of a certain number of years, to celebrate solemn sacrifices in the spring season, and to consecrate to the gods a number of young men, who were to quit their native land, and proceed under the auspices of Heaven to seek a new country. (Dionysius, Roman Antiquities, i. 16.) In this manner the Piceni and the Samnites are said to have been colonies of the Sabini. The Samnites in their turn sent out other colonies, and the Lucanians were one of these. The Samnites, as well as the Sabini, were entirely given to agricultural pursuits.

Rome, in the earliest ages, adopted the system of sending out colonies to those parts of Italy which she conquered. Colonies were established during the kingly period (Livy, i. 11, 27, 56); and the practice was continued after the expulsion of Tarquinius Superbus, the last king (Livy, ii. 21, 39). But the Roman colonies were different from those of most other people, inasmuch as they remained strictly subject to the mother country, whose authority they were the means of enforcing upon the conquered nations. They were, in fact, like so many garrisons or outposts of Rome. Servius (En. i. 16) gives the following definitions of a colony, taken from much older authorities:-"A colony is a society of men led in one body to a fixed place, furnished with dwellings given to them under certain conditions and regulations." Again, "Colonia is so called a colendo; it consists of a portion of citizens or confederates

sent out to form a community elsewhere by a decree of their state, or with the general consent of the people from whom they have departed. Those who leave without such a consent, but in consequence of civil dissensions, are not colonies." The notion of an early Roman colony was this: the colonists occupied a city already existing; and this, with perhaps one exception or two, was the general character of the early Roman colonies in Italy. These colonists were a part of the Roman state; they secured her conquests and maintained the subject people in obedience. When the Romans afterwards extended their conquests into countries where there were no regular towns, or where the population was fierce and hostile, and the Roman settlers must be ever on their guard against them, they built new towns in some favourable position. Such was the case in several parts of Gaul, Germany, and Spain. The first Roman colony beyond the limits of Italy was that founded on the site of Carthage, in the tribunate of Caius Gracchus, B.C. 122. This colony, which was originally called Junonia, did not succeed, or was neglected, owing to the dissensions at Rome: it was restored, or finally established, by C. Julius Cæsar. (Plutarch, Caius Gracchus, c. 11.) Narbo Martius, Narbonne in the south of France, was one of the early colonies beyond the limits of Italy. The early Roman colonies then in Italy consisted of Roman citizens, who were sent as settlers to fortified towns taken in war, with land assigned to them at the rate generally of two jugera of arable land or plantation for each man, besides the right of pasture on the public or common land. The old inhabitants were not ejected, or dispossessed of all their property; the general rule was, that onethird of the territory of the town was confiscated and distributed among the colonists, and the rest was left to the former owners, probably subject to some charges in the shape of taxes or services. The colonists constituted the populus of the captured place; they alone enjoyed political rights and managed all public affairs. The ownership of the publicum or public property, including the pasture land, was probably also vested in the new

settlers. It is natural to suppose, that for some generations at least, no great sympathy existed between the old and the new inhabitants, and hence we frequently hear of revolts of the colonies, which means, not of the colonists against the mother city, but of the old inhabitants, who rose upon and expelled the colonists. (Livy, ii. 39; vi. 21.) But these events generally ended by a second conquest of the place by Roman troops, when the old inhabitants were either put to the sword or sold as slaves, or, under more favourable circumstances, lost at least another third of their property. In later times, during the Civil Wars of Rome, which commenced with the disputes between Marius and Sulla, new colonies were sent by the prevailing party to occupy the place of the former ones; and the older colonists were then dispossessed of their property either wholly or in part, just as they had dispossessed the original inhabitants. Sometimes colonies, especially at a great distance from Rome, having dwindled away, or being in danger from the neighbouring people, asked for a reinforcement, when a fresh colony was sent, which also received grants of land. (Livy, ii. 21; vi. 30; xxxi. 49.) Each of the older colonies, it is observed by Gellius (xv. 13), was a Rome in miniature; it had its senators called Decuriones, its Duumviri, Ediles, Censores, Sacerdotes, Augurs, and other officers.

A distinction must be made between Roman colonies and Latin colonies. The citizens who went out to form a Roman colony retained all their civic rights, although Sigonius and some others pretend that they lost the franchise (jus suffragii); and yet, in various passages of Livy and elsewhere, colonists are styled cives and Romæ censi. The members of Roman colonies which were called Latin (Coloniæ Latina), had not the Roman citizenship, and those Roman citizens who went out in such a colony thereby lost their suffrage; they voluntarily renounced part of their civic rights in consideration of a grant of lands. The practice was for those persons who were willing to join a colony, to give in their names at Rome, and as the consequence of joining a Latin colony was a loss of civic rights, Cicero

(Pro Cacina, c. 33) argues that the joining such colony must be a voluntary act. There is also no reason for supposing that the joining of a Roman colony was compulsory; and if it was, it follows from what has been said, that a Roman colonist retained his civic rights. These Latin colonies were Roman colonies, inasmuch as they were subject to the Roman state; and hence they are sometimes called Roman colonies, which in one sense they were. But as opposed to Roman colonies which consisted of Roman citizens (Colonia civium), they were called Latin colonies, by which term was denoted their political condition. Before the Social War (B.c. 90), the following was the classification of people in the Roman dominions:

1. Cives Romani, Roman citizens, that is, the inhabitants of Rome, the citizens of the Colonia Civium or proper Roman colonies, and the citizens of the Municipia without reference to the stock to which they belonged.

2. Latini, or the citizens of the old towns of the Latin nation, with the exception of those towns which were raised to the rank of Municipia; and also the numerous and important Coloniæ Latinæ.

3. Socii (Allies), the free inhabitants of Italy who did not belong to the two classes first enumerated, and belonged to very various national stocks.

4. Provincials: the free subjects of the Romans beyond the limits of Italy.

This is the division of Savigny (Zeitschrift für Geschichtliche Rechtswissenschaft, xi. 6); and it appears to be consistent with all the best ancient authorities. He adds that as to the political condition of the people included under these four heads, those included under the first head, Cives Romani, were alone Cives; | those included under the three other heads were Peregrini (aliens). According to this view, the members of Latin colonies before the Social War were simply subjects of the Roman state: they had none of those political capacities which were the characteristics of Roman citizenship. As the term Peregrinus, however, was very comprehensive, and included all who were not Cives, it follows that, according to this view, the Latinæ Coloniæ and

foreigners not under Roman dominion were precisely on the same footing as to the privileges of Roman citizens; but their condition differed in this, that foreigners (aliens, properly so called) were not Roman subjects, but the members of Latin colonies were. This view is perhaps on the whole right, yet the inhabitants of Latin colonies were in a sense Cives, as contrasted with foreigners not subject to Rome, though they were not Roman citizens, in the sense of those who had all the capacities of Roman citizenship.

The result of the Social War was, that the Roman citizenship (civitas) was given to all the inhabitants of Italy south of the Po: all became Romani Cives; and the Latini-the inhabitants of Coloniæ Latina -and the Socii were all merged in the class of Cives. The distinction of Romani Cives and Peregrini still subsisted; but the class of Roman citizens had become enlarged. A new class of persons was now established, and distinguished by the name of Latini. This term now did not denote a particular people, but a political status-an imperfect citizenship, by virtue of which this new class had the right of acquiring property (commercium) just like Roman citizens; but they had not the connubium, or civic right of contracting such a marriage as would be a Roman marriage; in other words, a Roman citizen who married a woman in the condition of a Latina, was not according to Roman law the father of his children, and the children consequently were not Roman citizens. But in certain cases, a Latinus might acquire the Roman citizenship, for instance, by holding the high offices in his city. This rule was first established for the people north of the Po, and then given to many towns, and to large tracts out of Italy. The privilege of thus acquiring the Roman citizenship was the Jus Latii (Appian, Civil Wars, ii. 26), or Latinitas (Cicero, Ad Atticum, xiv. 12); and it was given to some towns founded after the Social War, as NovumComum, which was founded in Italy north of the Po, by C. Julius Cæsar, B.C. 59. The privilege which the Romans sometimes conferred on a town or district, under the name of Jus Italicum, was a

different thing from the Jus Latii. "It had no reference to the status of individuals, but to the condition of many communities. When a Provincial town received as a special favour by a Privilegium those rights which were the peculiar privileges of the Italian towns, this favour was called Jus Italicum. It consisted of three things: a free constitution, with the choice of their own magistrates, such as are mentioned in the Italian Municipia and Colonies (Duumviri, Quatuorviri); exemption from land-tax and poll-tax; the capacity of the land within the limits of the community to be held in Roman ownership (ex jure Quiritium), and the consequent application to such land of the Roman rules of law, as to Mancipation and Usucapion." (Savigny, Zeitschrift, &c., xi.)

The correctness of this view of the nature of the Coloniæ Latina, the Latinitas, and the Jus Italicum, will hardly be disputed now.

The Roman Agrarian Laws, or the laws for the distribution of public land, were often passed with the view of founding a colony and this became a usual mode of providing for veteran soldiers. Perhaps one of the earliest instances is mentioned by Livy (xxxi. 4). The senate passed a decree for the measurement and distribution of public land in Samnium and Apulia among those veteran soldiers who had served in Africa under P. Scipio. But after Sulla had defeated his opponents, the grants of lands to soldiers became more common, and they were made to gratify the demands of the army, at the cost of former settlers, who were ejected to make way for the soldiers. Julius Cæsar and Octavianus Augustus added to the number of these military colonies, and the practice of establishing them in parts beyond Italy existed under the Empire.

These colonies are distinguished by having military ensigns on their coins, while the Coloniæ Togatæ, or citizen colonies, have a plough on theirs. The coins of some colonies have both marks, which means that the original colony consisted of citizens, after which a second was sent, composed of soldiers. In Tacitus (Annal. i. 17), the veterans complain

that, after their long service, they were rewarded only with lands situated in swampy tracts or on barren mountains. The early system of colonies adopted by Rome had a double political object; to secure the conquered parts of Italy, and to satisfy the claims of its own poorer citizens by a division of lands among them. The importance of the Roman colonies is well expressed by Cicero, who calls them "propugnacula imperii et speculæ populi Romani." Such they doubtless were, and at the same time, by their extension beyond Italy, they were the germ of the civilization of Northern and Western Europe. A nation of civilized conquerors, whatever evils it may inflict, confers on the conquered people greater benefits. By their colonies in Spain, Gaul, on the banks of the Rhine, and in Britain, the Romans established their language and their system of administration. The imprint of their Empire is indelibly fixed on all the most civilized nations of Europe.

The difference between a Roman Colonia and an Italian Municipium is, that the latter was a town of which the inhabitants, being friendly to Rome, were left in undisturbed possession of their property and their local laws and political rights, and obtained moreover the Roman citizenship, either with or without the right of suffrage; for there were several descriptions of Municipia. The Roman colonies, on the contrary, were governed according to the Roman law. The Municipia were foreign limbs engrafted on the Roman stock, while the colonies were branches of that stock transported to a foreign soil. There is, however, some difficulty as to the precise character of an Italian Municipium in the republican period of Rome; and the opinions of modern writers are not quite agreed.

The Roman Provincial system must not be confounded with their Colonial system. A Roman province, in the later sense of that term, meant a country which was subjected to the dominion of Rome, and governed by a praetor, propraetor, or proconsul sent from Rome, who generally held office for a year, but sometimes for a longer period. Thus Spain, after the Roman conquest, was a Roman province,

and was divided into several administrative divisions. The earliest foreign possession that the Romans formed into a province was Sicily (B.C. 241). Sardinia (B.c. 235) became a Roman province, and the system was extended with the extension of the Roman power to all those parts of Europe, Asia, and Africa which were subjected to Roman dominion. A province was originally a foreign dependency on Rome; after all Italy became Roman, at the close of the Republican period, we may view all the provinces of Rome as foreign dependencies on Italy, of which Rome was the capital. The condition of the provinces, viewed as a whole, with respect to Rome was uniform: they were subject countries, subject to the ruling country, Italy. But the condition of the towns in the provinces varied very greatly: some had the Jus Italicum, or privilege of Italian towns, in the sense already explained, and these were probably in most cases settlements of Roman citizens; some towns retained most or perhaps all of their old privileges; and others were more directly under the Roman governor. Thus while the whole country was a dependency on Rome, particular cities might have all the privileges of Italian cities; and others would be in a less favoured condition. Both under the Republic and the Empire, but still more under the Empire, the Romans established colonies both of Roman citizens and Latin colonies, in their provinces; and in this way they introduced their language and their law. Tracts of land were doubtless seized as public land and distributed from time to time, but there does not appear to have been any claim on all the lands in any province, as lands that the Roman state might distribute, though undoubtedly the theory under the Empire was that all land in the provinces belonged to the Cæsar or the Roman state (Gaius, ii. 7). this theory would have a practical effect in all cases where an owner of land died and left no next of kin, or anybody who could claim his land. The maxim also implied the duty of obedience to the Roman state, and that rebellion or resistance

And

to the Romans would at once be a forfeiture of that land which was held by provincials, according to this theory, as a