Roman Law and the Legal World of the Romans

Roman History – The Brief Version

conquests in several different ways. In some places they seized at least part of the territory of the defeated state, declared it “Roman,” and often eventually distributed it to their own peo ple. In others, they left at least part of the defeated state in place, but placed it under treaty obligation to assist Rome in her future wars. And finally, they established entire new com munities (“colonies”). Some of these were populated by Roman citizens, but many were declared to be “Latin.” At this point, being Latin was no longer a linguistic (or ethnic or geographical) category, but a political one. That is, Rome took the package of legal rights and obligations that had previously distinguished the “real” Latins and started giving them out to others (even people who had been born Roman) as a matter of policy. Early in the first century bc many of the subordinate allies staged an uprising against the (by then greatly expanded) “Romans,” while the Latins and certain other allies remained loyal. The Romans won a military victory, but in the process all commu nities on the Italian peninsula were decreed to be Roman. During the time of the Republic, however, this spread of citizenship stayed almost entirely within the bounds of Italy. There were rare grants of citizenship to loyal foreigners (as a personal reward), and a select few colonies were established outside of Italy. This changed dramatically under the empire. First, colonies could no longer be established in the all-Roman Italy (which had come to include most of modern Italy by the mid first century bc). Thus subsequent placement of colonies (largely to settle retired veterans, rather than as the direct result of conquest) expanded the citizen-owned territory of

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