Was Præneste a Municipium?
Just what relation Præneste bore to Rome between 90 or 89 B.C., when she accepted Roman citizenship, and 82 B.C. when Sulla made her a colony, is still an unsettled question. Was Præneste made a municipium by Rome, did Præneste 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 citizenship 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 say215 that in 90 B.C. under the conditions of the lex Iulia Præneste became a municipium of the type which kept its own citizenship (ut municipes essent suæ cuiusque civitatis).216 But if this were true, then Præneste would have come under the jurisdiction of the city prætor (prætor urbanus) in Rome, and there would be præfects to look after cases for him. Præneste 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 præfect and here under the circumstances the argumentum ex silentio is of real constructive value, and constitutes circumstantial evidence of great weight.217 Præneste 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 Præneste received Roman citizenship 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 Præneste probably took citizenship in 89 under the lex Plautia-Papiria. The extreme cruelty which Sulla used toward Præneste,220 and the great amount of its land221 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 punishing recent obstreperousness.
There seems to be, however, very good reasons for saying that Præneste never became a municipium in the strict legal sense of the word. First, the particular officials who belong to a municipium, præfects and quattuorvirs, are not found at all;222 second, the use of the word municipium in literature in connection with Præneste is general, and means simply “town”;223 third, the fact that Præneste, along with Tibur, had clung so jealously to the title 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 passed over in silence; fourth and last, the fact that the Prænestines 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 Prænestines simply took advantage of the fact that Tiberius had just recovered from a severe illness at Præneste227 to ask him for what was merely an empty honor. It only salved the pride of the Prænestines, 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. Præneste 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 citizenship 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 municipal history of Præneste down to 82 B.C. when she was made a Roman colony by Sulla. Præneste, 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, Præneste 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 municipal officers of Præneste, but also in the question of Præneste’s relationship to Rome, is the fact that the evidence from first to last is for prætors as the chief executive officers of the Prænestine state (respublica), with their regular attendant officers, ædiles and quæstors; 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 Præneste took Roman citizenship either in 90 or 89 B.C.,213 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. Præneste 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.