possessed of this status are the original municipes, those who bear the burdens (of Roman citizenship), military service, militia, and direct taxation, tributum; they are never Latin speakers and were no doubt for that reason debarred from voting. Originally independent, the communities concerned came in the end to identify themselves with Rome; the process no doubt helped to create the climate of opinion to which a dual patria, a local community and Rome, was normal and which was one of the characteristic strengths of the political structure of late Republican Italy.
The truly revolutionary sequel, however, of the settlement of 338 was that Rome, although the Latin League had disappeared, continued to found colonies with the status of Latin cities. The first of these new, self-governing communities to be founded was Cales in 334. Their prime purpose was of course strategic; and at the same time Rome began to found small colonies of Roman citizens to act as garrisons at vulnerable points on the coasts of Italy. These were too small to possess developed organs of self-government, though someone was no doubt charged with organizing the levy when the colony was attacked.3
The standard Roman view of the colonies is well expressed by Cicero:
Is every place of such a kind that it does not matter to the state whether a colony is founded there or not, or are there some places which demand a colony, some which clearly do not? In this as in other state matters it is worth remembering the care of our ancestors, who sited colonies in such suitable places to ward off danger that they seemed not just towns in Italy, but bastions of empire (de lege agraria 11, 73).
The last and by far the largest group in the Italy of the turn of the fourth and third centuries was that of the allies, bound to Rome after defeat by a treaty, the central obligation of which was to provide troops for Rome.
The global result was the military levy ex formula togatorum – ‘according to the list of those who wear the toga’; the relevant categorization of the population of Italy appears in the Agrarian Law of III in a formulation which is presupposed by a Greek inscription of the early second century and which is certainly archaic:
those who are Roman citizens or allies or members of the Latin group, from whom the Romans are accustomed to command troops to be levied in the land of Italy, according to the list of those who wear the toga (Roman Statutes, no. 2, lines 21 and 50).
The relationship of command is in no way dissimulated (see also Polybius VI, 21, 4–5) and after 209 Rome dealt out severe punishment to twelve Latin colonies which claimed that they could not supply any more troops (see here).
The levy that could be produced is described by Polybius in the context of the Gallic incursion of 225:
But I must make it clear from the facts themselves how great were the resources which Hannibal dared to attack and how great was the power which he boldly confronted; despite this, he came so close to his aim as to inflict major disasters on the Romans. Anyway, I must describe the levy and the size of the army available to them on that occasion. (Polybius goes on to claim that the total manpower available to Rome was 700,000 infantry and 70,000 cavalry.) (11, 24)
The link between the manpower thus available and Rome’s openness to outsiders was already obvious to Philip V of Macedon, a future rival of Rome, as appears from a letter written to Larisa in 217:
… and one can look at those others who adopt similar approaches to admission of citizens, among them the Romans, who when they free their slaves admit them to citizenship and enable them (actually their sons) to hold office; in this way they have not only increased the size of their own country, but have been able to send colonies to almost seventy places … (SIG 543 with Chr.Habicht, in Ancient Macedonia, 265, for date)
The admission of outsiders as a source of, presumably military, strength is also explicitly recognized by Cato in his Origines, talking of early Rome:
Those who had come together summoned several more thither from the countryside; as a result their strength grew (Gellius XVIII, 12, 7 = fr. 20 Peter).
The fourth century BC saw not only the emergence of what we call the Italian confederation, but probably also the progressive articulation of the Roman citizen body into the five census classes known in the late Republic; the original division of the citizen body had probably been into assidui and proletarii, members of a single class and those below it, those who served as legionaries and those who did not; assidui were probably simply those who could equip themselves with a full suit of armour. It may be that Servius Tullius, the sixth king of Rome, then defined assidui in monetary terms, but the elaborate division of these assidui into five different classes, defined by different levels of capital wealth, is probably a development of the fourth century BC. Pay for the army had been instituted in 406, to be funded partly by indemnities from defeated enemies, partly from tributum, a levy on the capital wealth of the assidui; it was surely this and the growing complexity of the Roman fiscal system in general which called forth the so-called Servian system in its final form. The shift from a system which singled out those who could arm themselves to one which singled out those who were wealthy is clearly an important stage in the development of the Roman state.
Quite apart from providing the manpower which Rome controlled, the organization of Italy was also a considerable source of strength by reason of the loyalty which Rome was able to inspire by its means. In the first place, the range of statuses, with full citizens at one end and allies at the other and cives sine suffragio, citizens without the vote, and Latins in between prevented undue polarization. Secondly, the process of conquest of course involved deprivation, of booty or land or both, for the defeated; but once part of the Roman confederacy, they were entitled to a share in the spoils of the next stage and had indeed, as we shall see, an interest in ensuring that it took place. Finally, the way in which Italy was organized meant that there were open avenues of approach to full Roman citizenship. Civitas sine suffragio, citizenship without the vote, came to be regarded as a half-way house, whatever its original function; and it was possible for allies to join Latin colonies and thence, eventually no doubt, for their descendants to become Roman citizens.
It is also important to remember that apart from the levy, which was normally followed by a successful campaign, Roman rule lay light on the Italian communities; even in the case of incorporated communities, local government survived, and mostly the various elements of the Italian confederacy were left to themselves to perpetuate or evolve their own peculiar political structures. P. A. Brunt has indeed shown that the levy itself could not have been conducted without considerable local government institutions.
Given the power and preponderance of Rome, however, it is hardly surprising that the different cities of Italy should have increasingly assimilated themselves to Rome. Colonies obviously had a tendency at the outset to model themselves on different aspects of the city of Rome; thus Cosa, founded in 273, borrowed the notion of a curia, senate-house, linked with a circular comitium, place of assembly, directly from Rome. Building styles in general came increasingly to spread out from Rome to the periphery. And Cicero talks of the voluntary adoption of Roman institutions by Latin cities:
C. Furius once passed a law on wills, Q. Voconius on inheritance by women; there have been countless other measures on matters of civil law; the Latins have adopted those which they wished to adopt (pro Balbo 21).
The end product of the social and political process I have described is incisively delineated by Ennius, a native of Rudiae in Apulia, whose maturity belongs in the early second century (Annales, line 169 V): ‘The Campanians were then made Roman citizens.’
1. In 471 these regional units were chosen as the basis of a new organization of the Roman people for voting purposes, the comitia tributa, trial assembly (see Appendix 1).
2. Much later the rule was introduced whereby the magistrates of Latin communities acquired