Decurio (local government)
In the Roman Empire, a city council member of Roman communities who was elected for life in imperial times and late antiquity was referred to as decurio (“decade leader”, from Latin decem 'ten') or curialis . The term curialis is derived from the “ Curia ” , the meeting place of the senators in Rome or the members of the municipal council in the provinces. At the same time, the decurion class also denotes the upper class of the cities in the Roman Empire.
City council members were selected differently from city to city according to local regulations. In part, the Duoviri selected suitable candidates from the upper class of the Honestiores ; elsewhere, membership was only made possible by one's own activity as a duovir or as an urban aedile ; in still other cities the appointment was made by the council itself as part of a co-option . The candidates had to be free-born and have citizenship of the city, but were not allowed to have a criminal record, "dishonorable" , in debt to the community or be eunuchs . The minimum age was mostly 25 years, the minimum wealth depended, among other things, on the size of the city.
The decurions formed the ruling class of the civitates , municipia and coloniae , in which they were responsible for the security of the cities, everyday legal transactions and public events such as religious festivals or games. According to Roman law , this task was an honorary position, which was associated with considerable prestige and was therefore very desirable. As a rule, membership of the ordo decurionum , i.e. the group in a city from which most of the councilors came, was hereditary. In many municipia it was also stipulated that men who held curial public offices were given the coveted Roman citizenship after the end of their term of office . Up until the Constitutio Antoniniana , which granted citizenship to all free inhabitants of the empire in 212, this contributed to increasing the attractiveness of membership in the city council.
Later the picture changed. As a rule, the curials were entrusted by the Roman authorities with collecting taxes. Over time, this became a burden, because if the actual income fell short of what the governors had expected, the city councils had to pay the difference out of their own pocket. Beginning in the late 2nd century and intensified since the Imperial Crisis of the 3rd century , this burden became so significant that many Curials left their hometowns to escape impoverishment (so-called Curiale escape). This phenomenon was exacerbated by the fact that the wealthiest city councilors withdrew from their duties by entering the service of the emperor or the church, which was connected with general tax exemption. As a result, new office holders had to be found and pushed into their functions, who were often not wealthy enough to be able to fulfill their obligations.
On the other hand, of course, the decurions tried from the beginning to shift the tax pressure on the ordinary city dwellers. It was not until the beginning of the 4th century that the central administration in Rome took action against this by creating the office of defensor civitatis , which was supposed to protect citizens from unfair and excessive taxation.
literature
- Bernhard Kübler : Decurio . In: Paulys Realencyclopadie der classischen Antiquity Science (RE). Volume IV, 2, Stuttgart 1901, Col. 2319-2352.
- Herwig Stiegler : Decurio 1. In: The Little Pauly (KlP). Volume 1, Stuttgart 1964, Col. 1417-1419.
- Christian Gizewski : Decurio [1]. In: The New Pauly (DNP). Volume 3, Metzler, Stuttgart 1997, ISBN 3-476-01473-8 , Sp. 357-359.