LAT I'N U JUS, JUS LA'TII, LAT1'NITAS, sometimes also called simply LATIUM, was one of the various civil conditions under which the inhabitants of the Roman world were classed and comprised. The primary distinction of persons was that of freemen and slaves. Free , men were divided, according to the Roman polity, into 1. Cives Romani; 2. Latini ; 3. Peregrini, or aliens. The Roman citizen lived under the civil law of Rome, which determined his rights and duties, and he might aspire to the offices and honours of the Roman state.
The rights and duties of those who came under the second of these heads, the Latini, were defined by the Jus Latinum. They formed a considerable and important class, and ranked next to the Roman citizens in privilege. This class, however, was differently formed, and enjoyed different rights at various periods of the history of Rome.
The old inhabitants of Latium, whilst they continued fcederati or con federates of Rome under the Cassian treaty, enjoyed several of the rights of Roman citizens. The rights of a Roman citizen were of two sorts, private, or civil, and public, or political. The principal private rights were the jus libcrtatis, or personal freedom, by which the Roman citizen was master of his own person, could not be arbitrarily imprisoned nor punished, except after legal trial, and could not be scourged ou any account; the jus connubiorum, by which he was enabled to contract a legal marriage with a Roman freewoman, or with those Latina, or Peregrhue who enjoyed the privilege of the connubium, and by which his children were also Roman citizens ; the jus patrium, the consequence of the connubium, which gave him that uubounded authority over his children which was peculiar to the Roman law, and which no other people were possessed of (Gains, i. 55; Justinian, Institutiones,' i. 9) ; the jus legitimi dominii, which included the ability of acquiring property, by testamentary gift, mancipatio or nexum, usucapion, cessio, &c. ; and the jus testamentorum, by which he was enabled to bequeath property by will.
The chief public or political rights were, the jus census, or having his name registered in one of the tribes and centuriEe; the jus suffragiorum, or right of voting in the comitia; the right of appeal to the comitia from the sentence of the magistrate; and the jus honorum, by which he was enabled to aspire to any of the dignities in the state. Now the freemen of the Latin confederate towns lived under their own laws and therefore were not under the civil law of Rome ; they had their own forms of marriage, of testaments, &c., which were valid in their own courts, but not at Rome ; they had not the same paternal authority as the Romans over their offspring; they could not purchase, possess, or inherit property at Rome or in the Roman territory ; their persons were not under tho protection of the Roman law ; they might be sent away from Rome, and they and the other Italian socii were sent away repeatedly, among other instances, under the consulship of Lucius Crassum and Mutius Sccevola, in the year B.c. 96, just before the begin
ning of the Social war, to which that expulsion greatly contributed. It would seem, however, that all the towns of Latium were not on the same footing in these respects, and that some of them had adopted of their own choice certain Roman laws, and by so doing had become, according to the Roman legal term, " populi fundi," that is to say, had entered within the pale of those particular Roman laws, and had the benefit of their provisions even at Rome. (Cicero, `Pro Balbo,' viii.) Whether the Latin confederates had the connubium, or right of inter marriage, has been questioned by some; Niebuhr, however (vol. ii., On the Franchise of the Latins) maintains that they had.* As for the public or political rights of Rome which mainly constituted what was called the," civitas," the Latins were not " cemai " at Rome, and they could not aspire to the honours and offices of the Roman state, except those who had previously filled certain municipal offices in their own town for a time, after which, by transferring their domicile to Rome and inscribing their names in one of the tribes, they acquired the civitas and all its rights and privileges. It appears also that there were other means by which a Latin or other Italian freeman might obtain the Roman civitas, by rendering some important service to the Roman state. With regard to the right of suffrage, it is not clear under what conditions the municipes of the Latin cities enjoyed it, but it appears that they came at times to vote at Rome on certain occasions, but then they had no fixed tribe, and voted in a tribe which was drawn by lot, and they might, as it has been said already, bo ordered away by the magistrates previous to the day of voting, as was done by the consul Virginius, the colleague of Spurius Cassius. In the year n.c. 123, they came to Rome to vote in favour of the laws proposer' by Cahill Orsochus. but the consul C. Fannius ordered them away inunedietely. The civil condition of the lAtIne, or Jue LaIiI1U131, liPaR therefore iuferior to that of the Romans, but next to it in Importance, and a kind of intermediate step towards cbtaining It. They had. even at Rome, some advantages over the Peregrini, or aliens, who were domiciled in that city.