Municipium

Municipium (. Pl municipia) designated in the Roman Republic originally one of Rome dependent city of Latium , and later Italy, whose citizens towards Rome take over the same duties (Latin munera capere ) had to like the Roman citizens . As a rule, a municipium was a place that had to submit to the Romans - sometimes under very different conditions.

Probably since the Latin War in 338 BC BC citizens of Municipia cum suffragio had all the rights of a Roman citizen. The first municipality of this kind is said to have been Tusculum . Later, among others came Aricia , Lanuvium and Nomentum added.

The inhabitants of a municipality (also civitas ) sine suffragio , on the other hand, were not considered full Roman citizens for a long time. Although they had to serve and pay taxes in the Roman army, they had no voting rights in the entire Roman community and were not registered in the tribes .

Some of these cities had internal self-government. The oldest of these Municipia is said to have been Caere , after which the list of non-voting Romans was called tabulae Caeritium . Other cities of this legal form were about Capua , Cumae , Casilinum and Atellae .

Other municipalities without voting rights were not autonomous internally either, but were under the control of a prefect sent from Rome . At first (end of the 4th century BC) Fundi , Formiae and Arpinum belonged to them , later further praefecturae were added.

Many civitates sine suffragio received full Roman citizenship over the course of time (Fundi, Formiae and Arpinum in 188 BC). The Lex Iulia and the Lex Plautia Papiria during the cooperative war in 90 and 89 BC BC raised all country towns in Italy to the municipality with full citizenship, so that since then the word has generally meant "Italian country town".

In the imperial era, beginning with Gaius Iulius Caesar , cities in the provinces outside Italy (albeit almost only in the west of the empire) received the right of a municipality. In the 1st and 2nd centuries there was also municipia Latina , the inhabitants of which had Latin law that was less comprehensive than Roman law. From the year 212 onwards, all cities of the empire had at least the rank of municipium (although the differences to the position as colonia cannot always be precisely determined).