lee the Romano began *ending out colonies to several towns of Latium. such as Males, they probably placed the colonists on the same ixellig as the old Latin inhabitants, namely, under the Jue Latinum. And afterwards they followed the same system with regard to colonies which they sent to other parts of Italy, and which were called Latin colonise, though this name did not mean that they consisted of Latins, but that the colonists, whether Roman,. or Latins or from other parts of Italy, were placed, with regard to Rome, on the same footing as the inhabitants of Latium. The two principal advantages of their con dition were-1st, that they enjoyed municipal independence, had their own senate, chose their own local magistrates, and were not subject to the Roman praetor ; mud 21141, that those who filled important municipal offices for one year in the colony acquired the full right of the Roman civitas, ate', by transferring their domicile to Rome, might aspire to all the honours and offices of the republic.
At the time of the second Punic war there were thirty of these colonies in various parts of Italy. Twelve of them, after the battle of Canoe, being weary of the protracted war, refused to give any further assistance in men and money against Hannibal, saying that the Romans ought to make peace with Carthage. These colonies were Arable, Nopete, Sutrium, Alba, Cerseoli, Cora, Suessa, Circeii, Setia, Calm, Narma, Interamna. Livy: xxvii. 0.) The other colonies remained faithful, continued to furnish their contingents, and were thus the means of slaving Rome from destruction. These, it would appear from a passage of Cicero (' Pro Crecina,' 35), received as a reward the commercium with Rome, or the faculty of acquiring Quiritarian ownership (' Gahm,' ii. 40), of taking by testamentary gift from Roman citizens, and of making e will according to Roman forms, When by the Julian law the people of Latium and other allies received the full Roman franchise, the Latin colonies shared also the boon. They obtained the civitm, all their citizens had the same civil rights as those of Rome, and if they came and settled at Rome, they enjoyed all the political rights. At this period therefore the old lAtinitm, as &distinct civil condition of part of the inhabitants of Italy, was at an end.
But in the following year, under the consul Cn. Pompeius Strobe, the towns of Tmnspodane Gaul, which were filled with a mixed population of Italians and Gauls, had adopted the Latin language, and remained faithful to Rome in the midst of the defection of the Social war, were raised to the rank of Latin colonies, though no colonists were sent to them. By this new Latinitas, which was called " Latium," or the " lesser Latin franchise," compared with the old Latinitas, the Transpadane towns continuing to govern themselves according to their own laws, were allowed the commercium, but not the connubium, with Rome ; and they obtained such share of political privilege that persons who filled magistracies and offices of honour In such towns thereby acquired the full Roman franchise, and they alone. Afterwards many other towns and provinces were raised to the rank of Latin colonies in the mama degree; as, for example, the towns of Sicily obtained it from Julius., Carnar.
This the Latinitas, or Jur' Latinism, which existed in later ages of the republic and under the empire, until Caracalla bestowed the Roman citizenship upon the provinces. The principal conditions of
this lAtinitas will be found in the following passages of Ulpian. Ulp. Frig. Tit. IL, a. 16, Tit. v. s. 4 & Tit. xix. a. 4, in the last of which there is another kind of Latin mentioned ; namely, the Latini Juniani. This was e new kind of Latinitaa, introduced by the Lex Junia Norbaua, pissed under the consulship of M. Junius Silents,' and C. Norbanus Flaccua, in the tenth year of the reign of Tiberius, and the twentieth of our ors. By this law freedmen who were emancipated eithout certain fames (' Gains,' L, 17, 22, &c.) and their offspring were placed not tinder the Jus Civium Romanorum, but under the Jue Latinum, and this even under peculiar restrictions. They had the commercium, but not the connubium. (Savigny,' Ueber die Entste hung timid Fortbildung der lAtinitfit ads eines eigencn Standes im Remembers Staate: in the ' Veit-schrift fiir Geschichtliche Rechtswiseen echaft; 4th vol., 2nd No., Berlin, 1823.) Justinian e Cod.; b. vii., eh. 6) at last abolished this Juntas or Individual Latinitm, and as the Latinitas of the colonies ILwl ceased long before, all distinction between Latin and Roman was then at an end.
The great Importance which the Romans attached to the grant, not only of the political franchise, or suffrage, but also of the commie= and commernium, was an effect of their exclusive policy. When they 'Oehler' a confederate people, such as moot of the Italian nations were, they left to each town Its laws and its local magistrates, but forbade the general assemblies of the nation ; they restricted or entirely forbade the intercourse between one town and another, so that the people of each could not marry out of their rerpective district. They pursued afterwards the same policy in the countries which they conquered ley erl the limit. of Itaiy, as In Macedonia, which they divided into four parts, forbidding all communication between them.
We must now speak of the Jua Modicum. Sigonius understood it to be a sort of middle condition, between that of the Latini and that of the Peregrini, or aliens, with regard to Home. Bat Savigny con tende, and apistrently with reason, that the Jun ltalictun did not affect single individuals, but whole towns, namely, provincial towns out of Italy, to which it was granted, and that it consisted-1st, in the right of having their own free institutions and administration; 2nd, in being free from tax to Rome ; 3rd, in having the ownership of property in the territory of those towns regulated according to the Quiritarian or Roman laws, and consequently subject to usucapion, cootie jurist, mancipatio, and vindicatio. This last provision was an important security to property, and it placed the towns Jurist Italici above all other provincial towns, whether governed by a praetor from Rome or Eberle, which had not the same right. Towns having the Jus Itelicum are mentioned by Pliny in Spain and Illyricum ; Constantinople is mentioned in the Thoodomian code as enjoying the Jus Italicum, and in the Pandects (` De Censibus,' b. I., tit. 15) other town. are mentioned as possessed of the same right. (Savigny, Lieber dal Jun Italicurn: in the' Zeitschrift' above mentioned. See also, on the whole of this intricate matter concerning the Jus Latil and Jus ltalicum, Sigonius, De jure Antique 'tante ; Cicero, Pro Palbo, with the Notes of Crievius and Manutius ; Niebuhr's History of Rome.')