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The Transpadane Question and the Alien Act of 65 or 64 B.C.

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 September 2012

Extract

In the course of an article in this Journal (vol. iii, part 1, pp. 70 and 86) I had occasion to criticise the interpretation given by Mr. J. M. Nap to an important passage of Dio Cassius (xxxvii, 9) in connexion with a dispute between the censors of 65 on the subject of the Transpadani, and a subsequent Alien Act passed by a tribune named Papius. Not having his own article, which is written in Dutch, accessible, I had gathered his views from the paper of a not unfriendly critic in a French review, and I only dealt with them incidentally as bearing upon the date assigned by him to the so-called lex Iulia Municipalis. Since then, Mr. Nap has pointed out to me that, at least in one particular, I had misapprehended his meaning; he has also very kindly sent me a copy of his article, and has developed and elucidated his views in several letters. I have in consequence carefully re-studied the statements of Dio and I propose to examine somewhat more in detail Nap's interpretation and hypotheses, and at the same time to set forth by their side my own reconstruction of the situation, as far as the Transpadani and the Alien Act are concerned.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © E. G. Hardy1916. Exclusive Licence to Publish: The Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies

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References

page 63 note 1 Dateering en Rechtskarakter der Z.-G. lex Iulia Municipalis. Verhandelingen der koninklijke Akademie van Wetenschappen te Amsterdam Deel xi, no. iv.

page 64 note 1 Het iudicium legitimum in de Romeinsche wetgeving. Overgedrukt uit Themis, 1912, pp. 18-31.

page 64 note 2 Jurist. Schriften, i, 183.

page 65 note 1 ad Att. i, 1, 2.

page 66 note 1 See Liv. 39, 54, and Polyb. ii, 14.

page 67 note 1 Strabo, p. 213.

page 67 note 2 in Pison. 3.

page 67 note 3 H.N. iii, 10, 138.

page 68 note 1 v, i, 11, p. 217 ad fin.: ὅριον δὲ τῆς χώρας ταύτης, ἣν ἐντὸς Κελτικὴν καλοῦμεν, πρὸς τὴν λοιπὴν Ἰταλίαν τὸ τε Απέννεινον ὄρος τὸ ὑπὲρ τῆς Τυρρηνίας ἀπεέδεικτο και ὁ Αἶσις ποταμός, ὕστερον δὲ ὁ'Ρουβίκων.

page 68 note 2 Tac. Ann. xii, 23,Google Scholar and Sen. de brev. vit. 13.

page 68 note 3 in Pison. 3.

page 68 note 4 der Ital. Bund, p. 157.

page 68 note 5 Liv. 27, 9; 29, 15.

page 68 note 6 I take the dates at which these colonies were founded from Marquardt, , Rōm. Staatsverwalt. i, pp. 4950 (1881)Google Scholar.

page 68 note 7 Problems of Rom. Crim. Law, i, p. 151.

page 69 note 1 Mommsen, , Rom. Hist. Engl. trans. (1872) i, 433,Google Scholar note.

page 70 note 1 cf. lex agrar. 21 : ‘sociumve nominisve Latini quibus in terra Italia ex formula togatorum milites inperare solent.’

page 71 note 1 cf. the phrase ‘Transpadani alarii’ in Cic. ad Fam. ii, 17,Google Scholar 7.

page 73 note 1 ad Att. i, 1, 2.

page 73 note 2 Rom. Hist. Engl. trans, iv, p. 158. One would have hoped that this ill-considered view would have been modified in later works, but it is reasserted in a comparatively late article : ‘es nahmen die Caesarianer an, dass die Transpadaner das Bürgerrecht bereits besassen.’ (Juristische Schriften, i, p. 181.)

page 73 note 3 Dio (xli. 36) places the grant in 49; καὶ τοῖς Γαλάταις τοῖς ἐντὸς τῶν Ἀλπεων ὑπὲρ τὸν Ἠριδανὸν οἰκοῦσι, τὴν πολιτείαν, ἅτε καὶ ἄρξας αὐτῶν, ἀπέδωκεν. Strabo (210) states the same fact without a date, but implies a long interval between it and the enfranchisement of Italy: ὀψὲ δέ ποτε, ἀϕ' οὗ μετέδοσαν 'Ρωμαῖοι τοῑς Ιταλιταις τὴν ὶσοπολιτείαν, ἔδοξε και τοῖς ἐντὸς Ἄλπεων Γαλάταις… τὴν αὐτὴν ἀπονεῖμαι τιμήν, προσαγορεῦσαι δὲ καὶ Ἰταλιώτας πάντας καὶ 'Ρωμαίους. The law, as we know from the Atestine Fragment, was passed by L. Roscius, praetor in 49, on 11th March. I notice that Nap, applying his own canons of internal probability, regards the lex Roscia as granting to Caesar full powers to make and unmake laws, and as annexing Gallia Cisalpina to Italy. The latter point seems a misunderstanding of Strabo's statement, which records, not very clearly, two separate events, Italy was extended to the Alps, as we know from Dio (xlviii, 12) in 41. As to Nap's other assertion we may await his evidence for it.

page 74 note 1 This is clear from the supposed inclusion in the Roman census of the Latin colonies in 209, which was the result of disobedience.

page 75 note 1 Iul. 11.

page 75 note 2 ad.At. i, 1, 2.

page 76 note 1 The three leges Papiae are (1) the Alien Act, mentioned by Dio, of which we have the conclusion in lines 1 to 19 of the Table of Heraclea, and of which Nap's interpretation will be discussed below; (2) a law dealing with aedilician duties, also on the Table; (3) the law about the census. Nap's reference of this last law to the dispute between the censors is open to a further objection, which I need not here insist on, in that he includes in it the regulations as to municipal senates, obviously irrelevant to what he makes the essential aim of the law.

On Nap's view of matters military and politica the third lex Papia would seem to have had little effect. Its object was to exclude the Transpadani from the census, and this involved non-eligibility for service in the legions. Notwithstanding this, he infers from Bell. Civ. iii, 87 (quoted above) that Transpadani did serve in Caesar's legions. They could do this, he thinks, because Latins were not ‘peregrini’ but ‘municipes.’ But, if as ‘municipes’ they could join the legions without being on the census, why did their advocates in 65 take so much trouble to get them on the census ? If we discard facts and evidence for theories and conjectures, we must expect disconcerting concradictions of this kind. On Latins as ‘municipes’ see below.

page 78 note 1 That the Latin colonies fell under the class of ‘civitates foederatae’ in its widest sense is indicated by Cicero's phrase ‘Latinis, id est. foederatis’ in pro Balb. 24, 54.

page 78 note 2 de Offic. iii, 11, 47.

page 79 note 1 pro Flac. 28, 66.

page 79 note 2 It would be perhaps cruel to press the point Nap's view neither were there any native born ‘peregrini’ in the Cisalpine province, if the Transpadani were, as he contends, not ‘peregrini.’

page 80 note 1 Ascon. in Cornelian. 67.

page 81 note 1 de Off. iii, 11, 47.

page 81 note 2 It is this double character of the law which explains Cicero's mixture of praise and blame. As dealing with usurped rights he approves it; as an Alien Act he condemns it. He says in pro Sest. 13, 30, ‘nihil acerbius socii et Latini ferre soliti sunt quam se, id quod perraro accidit ex urbe exire a consulibus iuberi.’ The reference' according to Schol-Bob, is to the law of 95, by which it was enacted: ‘ut redire socii et Latini in suas civitates iuberentur.’

page 81 note 3 de leg. agr. i, 4, 13.

page 82 note 1 de leg. agr. i, 4, 13.