Chapter II The Municipal Government of Præneste
Præneste 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 Præneste into a league with the other towns of Latium. Præneste 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 passed from a position of first among equals to that of mistress of her former allies, Præneste was her proudest and most turbulent subject.
From the earliest times, when the overland trade between Upper Etruria, Magna Græcia, and Lower Etruria came up the Liris valley, and touching Præneste 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. Præneste 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 assume the primacy among the towns of the Latin league. This assumption of a leadership practically hers already was disputed by only one city. This was Præneste, and there can be no doubt but that if Præneste 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. Præneste 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 Præneste 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 Præneste at every opportunity. She assumed control of some of her land in 338 B.C., on the ground that Præneste helped the Gauls in 390;163 she showed her jealousy of Præneste 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 Præneste was treated by a Roman dictator165 in 319 B.C. But while these isolated outbursts of jealousy showed the ill feeling of Rome toward Præneste, there is yet a stronger evidence of the fact that Præneste 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 Præneste, an ever-recurring reminder of the centuries of ancient grudge. Often in Roman literature Præneste is mentioned as the typical country town. Her inhabitants are laughed at because of their bad pronunciation, 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 passed.166 Præneste scornfully refused Roman citizenship in 216 B.C., when it was offered.167 This refusal Rome never forgot nor forgave. No Prænestine families seem to have been taken into the Roman patriciate, as were some from Alba Longa,168 nor did Præneste ever send any citizens of note to Rome, who were honored as was Cato from Tusculum,169 although one branch of the gens Anicia170 did gain some reputation in imperial times. Rome and Præneste 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 Præneste’s strategic position as key of Rome, and the religious rivalry due to the great fame of Fortuna Primigenia at Præneste, 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 Præneste a stronghold against the power of Rome.
There are a great many reasons why Præneste offers the best opportunity for a study of the municipal 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 Præneste 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 Præneste also has more municipal fasti preserved than any other city, and this fact alone is sufficient reason for a study of municipal officers. In fact, the position which Præneste 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, Præneste did not have a curtailed treaty as did Alba Longa,172 but one on equal terms (foedus æquum), such as was accorded to a sovereign state. This is proved by the right of exile which both Præneste and Tibur still retained until as late as 90 B.C.173
As a municipium, the rights of Præneste 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 class 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 Præneste, on the contrary, belonged to yet a third class. This was the most favored class 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 Præneste shared this extraordinary agreement with Rome with but one other Latin city, Tibur. The question whether or not Præneste was ever a municipium in the technical and constitutional sense of the word is apart from the present discussion, and will be taken up later.177
As a colony, Præneste has a different history from that of any other of the colonies founded by Sulla. Because of her stubborn defence, and her partisanship 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 Præneste was too strong to allow it to lie in ruins. Further, in colonies the most characteristic officers were the quattuorviri. Præneste, again different, shows no trace of such officers.
Indeed, at all times during the history of Latium, Præneste clearly had a city government different from that of any other in the old Latin League. For example, before the Social War178 both Præneste and Tibur had ædiles and quæstors, but Tibur also had censors,179 Præneste did not. Lavinium180 and Præneste were alike in that they both had prætors. There were dictators in Aricia,181 Lanuvium,182 Nomentum,183 and Tusculum,184 but no trace of a dictator in Præneste.
The first mention of a magistrate from Præneste, a prætor, in 319 B.C, is due to a joke of the Roman dictator Papirius Cursor.185 The prætor was in camp as leader of the contingent of allies from Præneste,186 and the fact that a prætor was in command of the troops sent from allied towns187 implies that another prætor was at the head of affairs at home. Another and stronger proof of the government by two prætors 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 municipal 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 prætors,188 with the continuance of the name prætor 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 prætors,190 and this shows two things: first, that two prætors were better adapted to circumstances than one dictator; second, that the majority of the towns had prætors, 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 dictator192 at its head at some time,193 and the fact that these two prætors 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 prætors were the regular and well known municipal chief magistrates. Before Præneste was made a colony by Sulla, the governing body was a senate,194 and the municipal officers were prætors,195 ædiles,196 and quæstors,197 as we know certainly from inscriptions. In the literature, a prætor 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 Præneste and Rome down to 90 B.C., the year in which the lex Iulia was passed. If a dictator was ever at the head of the city government in Præneste, 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 Præneste seems to imply that these two towns had better opportunities for a more rapid development, and that both had prætors at a very early period.201
However strongly the weight of probabilities make for proof in the endeavor to find out what the municipal government of Præneste was, there are a certain number of facts that can now be stated positively. Before 90 B.C. the administrative officers of Præneste were two prætors,202 who had the regular ædiles and quæstors as assistants. 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 nobility.203
An important epoch in the history of Præneste 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 assumed a serious aspect. To mitigate or to cripple this revolt (the so-called Social or Marsic war), a bill was offered and passed 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 citizenship (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 passed, which offered Roman citizenship to the citizens (cives et incolæ) of the federated cities, provided they handed in their names within sixty days to the city prætor in Rome.205
There is no unanimity of opinion as to the status of Præneste in 90 B.C. The reason is twofold. It has never been shown whether Præneste 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 citizenship. In 338 B.C., after the close of the Latin war, Præneste and Tibur made either a special treaty206 with Rome, as seems most likely, or one in which the old status quo was reaffirmed. In 268 B.C. Præneste 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 Prænestine cohort at Casilinum, the inhabitants of Præneste were offered Roman citizenship, and that they refused it.210 Now if the citizens of Præneste accepted Roman citizenship 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, citizenship, if the allies desired it, did not accomplish its purpose, is clear from the immediate passage 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 Prænestines makes it sure that they resisted Roman citizenship 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 citizenship in Præneste 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 Præneste and Tibur, which had lately been received into citizenship,213 tried to get them to revolt again from Rome, and collected money for the prosecution of the war. This not only shows that Præneste had lately received Roman citizenship, but implies also that Rome thus far had not dared to assume any control of the city, or the consul would not have felt so sure of his reception.