¹ All pre-Gracchan colonisation, both citizen and Latin, was military in design (see particularly Salmon, E. T., JRS, XXVI, 1936, p. 47Google Scholar, and Sherwin-White, A. N., The Roman Citizenship, Oxford, 1939, pp. 72 ff.Google Scholar), and Ariminum was no exception (see Frank, Tenney, Economic Survey of Ancient Rome, I, p. 59Google Scholar). It is at the time of the Gracchi that special conditions were introduced for the setting-up of Latin colonies. Their members could no longer obtain Roman citizenship by registering residence at Rome. The change was made for the benefit of the colonies themselves, to prevent the reduction of their manpower.

² Beloch (Ital. Bund., p. 143) gives the area as 250 square miles. Tenney Frank (op. cit., p. 60) accepts this, and suggests that the number of colonists may have been 4,000.

³ Nissen, (Italische Landeskunde, II, 1902, p. 378Google Scholar) gives it an extension from the Aemilian plain southwards as far as the Metaurus. See Mansuelli, G. A., Ariminum (Italia romana: municipi e colonie, I, vi), Rome, 1941, p. 115Google Scholar; Alessandri, , I municipi romani di Sarsina e Mevaniola, Milan, 1928Google Scholar.

⁴ Mansuelli, op. cit., p. 116.

⁵ It is not proposed to enter here into the events of the wars by which Rome advanced from Ariminum, the bridgehead, to the conquest of all the Cisalpine country, except in so far as these details affect the dating of the establishment of Roman colonies and settlements there.

⁶ 6000 colonists went to each (Polyb. III, 40).

⁷ See Frank, Tenney, ‘Placentia and the battle of the Trebia’, JRS, IX, 1919, p. 202Google Scholar. With the colony here, the descriptions of this battle in Polybius and Livy make sense. On this theory we can also explain why the territorium of Placentia stretched so far to the west, and why there is a break in its centuriation at the Trebia.

⁸ See Mancini, G., ‘Le colonie ed i municipi romani dell'Emilia occidentale’, Emilia romana, II, Firenze, 1944, p. 68Google Scholar.

⁹ Antichi marmi modenesi, Modena, 1829, p. 8Google Scholar.

¹⁰ There is much controversy about the origin of the name Parma, but it is more likely to have been Etruscan than to have been given by the Romans. In any event there was pre-Roman settlement on a terramara to the east of the Roman town, where indeed the first colonial settlement may have been made. See Pais, E., Storia crit. di Roma, III, p. 256Google Scholar; Andreotti, R., ‘Intorno ai primordi ed allo sviluppo di Parma nell'antichità’, Bull. Comm. Arch. Com. LVI, 1928, p. 254Google Scholar; Corradi-Cervi, M., ‘Nuovi contributi alia topografia di Parma romana imperiale’, Archivio storico per le provincie parmensi, 3rd series, I, 1938, pp. 5–24Google Scholar.

¹¹ Compare the case of Faventia. The centre was probably not given this name before 173 B.C., at the earliest, but Silius Italicus (VIII, 595) speaks of the part played by the Faventines in the Hannibalic War. As, however, in the same passage he mentions Pollentia (certainly not founded before 173, and perhaps not before 100 B.C.) and Aquileia (founded in 181, on a site where previously there was no community), the accuracy of his information is open to doubt.

¹² The fort was first occupied by C. Flaminius in 223. In 197 it was destroyed, and though rebuilt, gradually lost its old importance, particularly with the rise of Dertona and Iria. An emporium grew up on the road below the old fort, but not even the emporium figures in the itineraries of the empire. The centre was never independent (CIL V. 2, 7357: ‘colleg. centonar. Placent. consistent. Clastidi’). See Baratta, M., Clastidium (Biblioteca della società pavese di storia patria, n. 3), Pavia, 1932Google Scholar.

¹³ See below, p. 70.

¹⁴ Compare the early evidence of Polybius, who had seen the Gauls (II, 35) .

¹⁵ 6,000 colonists were sent to the two colonies together. Corradi-Cervi, M. erroneously states (Istituzioni e personaggi piacentini del tempo romano, Piacenza, 1940, p. 3Google Scholar) that 6,000 were sent to each city; this mistake does not occur in Corradi-Cervi, and Rocca, , Archivio storico per le provincie parmensi, 3rd series, I, 1938, pp. 45 ffGoogle Scholar. On the reinforcement of Placentia see Below, p. 57.

¹⁶ Cluverius, Ital. antiq., p. 278; Cavedoni, , Antichi marmi modenesi, Modena, 1829, p. 9Google Scholar. Cluverius used this as an additional argument for saying that Mutina was founded before 183, but the balance of probability lies against both these views.

¹⁷ Chiesi, , De Tanneto et Brixello Romanorum aetate, Reggio Emilia, 1890, p. 25Google Scholar; Corradi-Cervi, M., Emilia romana, I, Firenze, 1941, p. 48Google Scholar; and Atti delta società italiana per il progresso delle scienze (Rome), XXII, 1933, iv, p. 151Google Scholar.

¹⁸ Pliny, calls Brixellum a colony (HN III, 116Google Scholar), but his practice seems to be to give this title only to places colonised by Augustus.

¹⁹ De Sanctis, G. (Storia dei Romani IV, 427Google Scholar) gives the date of this road as 175, and its course as Bononia-Hostilia-Patavium-Aquileia. Was Hostilia, then, the colony of 189? This is most unlikely; Tacitus, (Hist. III, 8Google Scholar) calls Hostilia a ‘vicus Veronensium’.

²⁰ See below, p. 58, and note 28.

²¹ Strabo (V, 217) describes Lepidus as building a road from Ariminum to Bononia and Aquileia, and as doing this in 187, when Gaius Flaminius was his colleague and was building the Via Flaminia. His account seems to confuse two stages in Lepidus' road-making activities.

²² Op. cit.

²³ See A. Solan, ‘I centri emiliani della tribù Stellatina’ (from Historia, 1927, 4), p. 3; Reggiani, , ‘Contributo allo studio di Forli romana’, Emilia romana II, p. 218Google Scholar.

²⁴ See p. 61.

²⁵ This was independent at some stage, for it is mentioned by Pliny, (HN III, 116Google Scholar), had VI viri (CIL XI. 1, 573, 574) and was later a diocese.

²⁶ Since the time of Vecchiazzani, , Historia di Forlimpopoli, Rimini, 1647Google Scholar. See the authors quoted by Parmeggiani, (Forum Popili, Perugia, 1909Google Scholar), who rejects this view.

²⁷ See Mommsen, , in Rheinisches Museum für Philologie, Neue Folge X, p. 141Google Scholar.

²⁸ Certain examples of this relationship in Cisalpine Gaul are Forum Iulium Carnicum, Forum Iulium Iriensium, Forum Iuli Transpadanorum; probable examples are Forum Fulvi (see p. 67), Forum Lepidi Regii (see p. 59), Forum Popili, Forum Livi (see below, p. 58), Forum Clodi (see p. 64), one or possibly both Fora Licini (see p. 65) and Forum Vibi. The only two ‘Fora’ that have no obvious connection with road-building are Forum Cornell, from which a road may have led into the Apennines, and Forum Druentinorum, of which the site and the history are uncertain.

²⁹ But see Solari, op. cit., p. 6, quoting Pieri, Topografia della valle dell'Arno, p. 135.

³⁰ CIL XI. 2, 6604, 6605. We may also notice the fact that the Stellatina tribe was used elsewhere in Umbria (Urvinum Mataurense, Urvinum Hortense; CIL XI. 2. 1, 6053–4, 6056–9, 6060–3; and 5175, 5178).

³¹ See Solari, A., ‘Sull'antichità della via Faventia-Luca’, Athenaeum, N.S. VI, 1928, p. 157Google Scholar.

³² In Nuovo Piccolo, Faenza, 1927Google Scholar, numbers of Feb. 6th and 13th.

³³ R. Andreotti (‘Il percorso dell'antica via Faentina’, Historia, 1927, 2, p. 155) says: ‘there is a tradition, perhaps genuine, which Metelli records, that the Empress Galla Placidia and her son Valentinianus crossed by the Regina pass, a place near Monte Sacco where there are remains of a road. This may be explained by the fact that in the time of the barbarian invasions it was not very safe to travel by the good, well-known roads, and that a new route was probably opened up through less accessible and more remote parts.’ It is just as likely that old roads which had fallen into disuse were used again in the troubled times of the late empire.

³⁴ There is also evidence for a road in later times connecting Arretium and Ravenna. It is mentioned in ‘La vita di S. Ellero’, and may have run down the Bidente valley to the south-east of Forli (see Not. Scav. 1943, p. 216). This road seems to have passed by Galeata near Mevaniola. Archaeological remains in the valley are few, however, apart from those at Meldola of the aqueduct that took water to Ravenna. It may only have been after the construction of this aqueduct that the Bidente route acquired any importance.

³⁵ loc. cit.

³⁶ See p. 56 and also M. Corradi-Cervi, Emilia romana, II, p. 47 and O. Siliprandi, Scavi archeologici avvenuti nella provincia di Reggio Emilia nell'ultimo cinquantennio, Reggio Emilia, 1936, p. 93.

³⁷ See RE I, 552; A. Solari, ‘Sulle origini di alcuni centri dell'Emilia occidentale’, Historia, 1928, 4, p. 556; R. Andreotti, ‘Due centri dell'Emilia occidentale’, Historia, 1929, 3, p. 466; Scullard, H. H., Roman Politics 220–150 B.C., Oxford, p. 287Google Scholar.

³⁸ Probably, like most other fora, this centre was independent from the time of its foundation. Ptolemy (III, 1, 42) calls it a colony. Corradi-Cervi, disagreeing with Andreotti, thinks this title should be referred to Parma, the previous name on Ptolemy's list, but in fact the designation κολωνία a comes after both Parma and Regium Lepidum. As Siliprandi points out, signs of the centuriation of the ager are lacking in this part, which is further evidence against the view that a colony was sent there. It may be that other communities on the south-west and north-east very much restricted the area free for Roman colonisation. Not much importance need be attached to the words of Ptolemy, in the absence of confirmation. He calls the following towns in Cisalpine Gaul colonies: Concordia, Aquileia, Cremona, Augusta Praetoria, Hasta, Parma, Regium Lepidum, Tergeste, and Forum Iulium (perhaps a mistake for Iulium Carnicum, which certainly was a colony, and to which the description of being an inland town of the Carni seems more applicable). This list certainly omits many undoubted colonies, and no reliance can be placed on it.

³⁹ De Sanctis, G. (Storia dei Romani, Torino, 1923, IV, 1, p. 424Google Scholar) gives an excellent brief account of this viritim colonisation; only the passage in italics needs securer evidential support: ‘Il restante si venne a grado a grado ed anche in grosse porzioni alla volta assegnando viritanamente a cittadini e talvolta anche a soci che pare finissero poi col confondersi coi cittadini. Spontaneamente o a cura dei magistrati che prowidero alle assegnazioni viritane i cittadini ivi stabiliti si diedero centri per tenere i mercati, e deliberare degli interessi comuni, i conciliaboli e fori. I quali nella Gallia Cisalpina, a tanta distanza da Roma, godettero d'una maggiore autonomia che non altrove e anche d'una tal quale giurisdizione; ciò che preparò la loro trasformazione, awenuta più tardi, in comuni.’

⁴⁰ That is to say, all inhabitants of this ager who were Roman citizens were in the Pollia tribe. Citizens who lived in the district, but did not possess ager, were probably in other tribes according to their origin; non-citizens who settled on the land were placed in the Pollia tribe when they acquired citizenship.

⁴¹ This is not to deny that travelling magistrates may have exercised control in some judicial matters, or that officials in the Roman colonies of Mutina and Parma may have had some powers over these areas. Doubtless also rudimentary municipal organisations developed, whether by law or custom.

⁴² There is no similar settlement north of the Po (the official foundations of Cremona, Aquileia and Eporedia do not count). An attempt has been made (see the discussion in Zanon, , Romanltà del territorio cittadellese, Parma, 1907, p. 53Google Scholar) to shew that the Romans settled Ligurians at Acelum in 172. This is based solely on Livy XLII, 22, and on the clear traces of centuriation to the south of Asolo in Venetia. This centuriation is orientated to the Via Postumia, built in 148, and can hardly be older than this road (see P. Fraccaro, ‘Intorno ai confini e alia centuriazione degli agri di Patavium e di Acelum’, in Studi di antichità classica offerti a Emanuele Cinceri, 1940, p. 1). Perpendicular to the Via Postumia runs the Via Aurelia. This regularity suggests that the centuriation was anterior to, or contemporaneous with, the building of the Via Aurelia. But we cannot push back the date of the centuriation, because we do not know when the road was built, and its name suggests an imperial origin. It is indeed unlikely that Ligures were settled in 172 or at any period in die Republic among friendly Veneti. Probably the settlements were made further to the west. It is also unlikely that they were accompanied by centuriation, a device for Roman settlement,

Nissen, (Italische Landeskunde, II, p. 164Google Scholar) suggests that Caburrum, north of the Po, was founded in 179 by Fulvius Flaccus, and was in the Pollia tribe, already (after 183) adopted as the tribe for Cisalpine Gaul. There are two Pollia inscriptions from the place, but they may easily be strays from one of the Pollia towns south of the Po. Forum Vibi was in the Stellatina, and Nissen suggests that this centre later had the supremacy over Caburrum. But it is hard to explain the change of tribe.

⁴³ E. Andreoli, ‘Intorno all'antichita d'Imola’, Historia, 1928, 2, p. 336; R. Andreotti, ‘Due centri romani dell' Emilia occidentale’, o.c., 468; Ducati, P., Storia di Bologna I, Bologna, 1928, p. 363Google Scholar; A. Solari, ‘Sui limiti dell'antico territorio claternese’ Historia, 1928, 2, p. 194; ‘Sull' antichità della via Faventia-Luca’, Athenaeum, N.S. VI 1928, p. 164Google Scholar.

⁴⁴ ‘I centri emiliani della tribù stellatina’, Historia, 1927, 4, p. 6.

⁴⁵ See below.

⁴⁶ See De Pachtère, G., La table hypothécaire di Veleia, Paris, 1920, p. 9Google Scholar.

⁴⁷ For the centuriation of this area see Schulten, A., ‘Die romische Flurteilung und ihre Reste’, Abhandlungen der Kön. Gesell. der Wissenschaften zu Göttingen, 1899, N.S. II, p. 20Google Scholar, which is the basis of all later work.

⁴⁸ Siliprandi, O., Scavi archeologici nella provincia di Reggio Emilia nell'ultimo cinquantennio, Reggio Emilia, 1936, p. 59Google Scholar; S. Aurigemma, Not. Scav. 1940, 301.

⁴⁹ ‘Sull'importanza di una iscrizione tannetana scoperta presso Poviglio’, Aurea Parma XIX, 1935, 2Google Scholar.

⁵⁰ Emilia romana, II, p. 80.

⁵¹ Op. cit., 94.

⁵² For a useful caution about the danger of arguing from insufficient evidence in such cases see Chilver, G. E. F., Cisalpine Gaul, Oxford, 1941, p. 47Google Scholar.

⁵³ But see below, p. 65.

⁵⁴ See above, p. 57 ff.

⁵⁵ See Strabo, ibid., for the drainage works of M. Aemilius Scaurus upstream from Parma about 109 B.C.

⁵⁶ I hope to discuss some of the problems connected with the enfranchisement of Cisalpine Gaul on a later occasion.

⁵⁷ ‘The Italic Regions’, Classica et Mediaevalia: Dissertationes, IV, Copenhagen, 1947, p. 25Google Scholar.

⁵⁸ See Rudi Thomsen, op. cit., 46.

⁵⁹ But see Corradi-Cervi, M., ‘I municipi ignoti dell'-VIII regione augustea’, Archivio storico per le provincie parmensi, 3rd series, I, 1938, pp. 117–26Google Scholar.

⁶⁰ See below, p. 65.

⁶¹ See above, n. 28.

⁶² Op. cit.

⁶³ But see Andreotti, R., ‘Le communicazioni antiche di Parma col Tirreno’, Bull. Comm. Arch. Com. IV (1927Google Scholar). For the view taken here, on the other hand, see M. Corradi-Cervi, op. cit., and Solari, A., ‘Forum Novanorum’, Athenaeum, N.S. VI, 1928, p. 352Google Scholar.

⁶⁴ R. Andreotti, op. cit., p. 228.

⁶⁵ See A. Solari, ‘Sull'antichità della via Faventia-Luca’, op. cit., p. 162.

⁶⁶ M. Corradi-Cervi, op. cit.

⁶⁷ M. Corradi-Cervi, op. cit.

⁶⁸ Where it is wrongly stated that it was Pollentia that was also called Carrea.

⁶⁹ As was probably the case with Forum Germa … (Germanici?). If this is the correct name for the town mentioned in CIL V. 2, 7832, 7836, it must have been founded after the beginning of the Principate. The ager may have been already in the Pollia tribe by 89; in any event, it was then, or in 49, placed under the jurisdiction of one of the Pollia towns, probably Pollentia. See Gabotto, (‘I municipi romani dell'Italia occidentale alla morte di Teodosio il Grande’, Biblioteca della società storica subalpina, XXXII, iii, 1907, p. 295Google Scholar), who is mistaken in placing the town at Germagnano in the valley of the Lanzo near Eporedia. The only positive reason for this is a possible derivation of the name from Forum Germanorum. It is better to place the town at Cavaglio, San Damiano or Busca. See Lamboglia, , ‘La Liguria antica’, Istituto per la Storia di Genova, Milano, 1941, p. 318Google Scholar.

⁷⁰ But see below p. 70, for Pollentia.

⁷¹ See Tibiletti, G., ‘Il possesso dell'ager pullicus e le norme de modo agrorum sino ai Gracchi, I,’ Athenaeum, XXVI, 1948, p. 198Google Scholar.

⁷² Op. cit., p. 271.

⁷³ Op. cit., p. 307.

⁷⁴ Op. cit., p. 229.

⁷⁵ Dalle Guerre Puniche a Augusto, I, Roma, 1918, p. 646Google Scholar.

⁷⁶ Op. cit., pp. 657 ff.

⁷⁷ CIL VI, 2466 gives a change of tribe from Scaptia to Pomptina, but this is a change of an individual who took part in the Augustan colonisation of the place.

⁷⁸ See Gabotto, , ‘Storia di Tortona nell'età del comune’, Bibl. soc. stor. subalp., XCVI, i, N.S., 1922, p. 12Google Scholar.

⁷⁹ See below, p. 70. On the former view, it would be a colony in the Gracchan tradition, founded by Saturninus.

⁸⁰ See Pais, op. cit., pp. 653 ff.

⁸¹ See above, p. 59.

⁸² But we have certainly not explained why Velleius should have thought it possible Dertona was colonised in the Republican period. It is hard to see how there could have been evidence suggesting such colonisation if the Augustan settlement was the first there.

⁸³ A study of the town of Hasta does not furnish evidence for any theory. This town has been connected with Pompeius Magnus (Muratori, , Asti, colonia romana e sue iscrizioni latine, Torino, 1869Google Scholar), but if anything the link must be with his father. The name Hasta does not suggest foundation at the same time as the other Pollia towns; but even if it was not founded until 89, the territorium may have been already inscribed in the Pollia tribe.

⁸⁴ Copia, 193; Vibo Valentia, 192; Potentia, 184.

⁸⁵ It should be noted that the similar formation of the names Valentia, Potentia, etc., suggests that all these places were founded at the same time.

⁸⁶ The name Sedulia is found only in later documents, and may have been no more than that of a villa. Analogy suggests, however, that Vardagate also had a Roman name.

⁸⁷ Inscriptiones Italiae, IX, Regio IX, fasc. I: Augusta Bagiennorum et Pollentia, Rome, 1948, p. xiiGoogle Scholar. The only inscription that mentions a supreme magistrate reads: ‘L. Gavius C. f. Pollia aedilis duovir quinquennalis’ (ibid., n. 179).

⁸⁸ Lachmann, K. (Gromatici Veteres, Berlin, 1848, p. 203Google Scholar, fig. 196b) gives a ‘colonia Iulia Augusta’ between Opulentia (=Pollentia?) and Hasta. This could not be Augusta Bagiennorum because the site is wrong (see Manzone, , I Liguri Bagienni e la loro Augusta, Torino, 1893, p. 94Google Scholar). Alba Pompeia has Ilviri (CIL V. 2, 7605, 7606), but was probably not an Augustan colony. And if this colonia Iulia Augusta was Pollentia itself, what was Opulentia? In fact, no reliance can be placed on these diagrams, which were often purely imaginary. It is only fair to mention, however, that an inscription (CIL V. 2, 7629) found between the Stura and the Po refers to an ‘Iulia Augusta’. It is usual to refer this to Augusta Taurinorum, but it might come from one of the Pollia towns.

⁸⁹ By the time of Tiberius the town was walled and probably had an amphitheatre (Suet. Tib. 37). Remains have been found of a forum, temple, theatre and large amphitheatre.

⁹⁰ See Fraccaro, ‘La colonia romana di Eporedia e la sua centuriazione’, Annali dei Lavori Pubblici, 1941, fasc. 10, p. 6.

⁹¹ Chilver suggests that the commercial class, joining the Senate in 100 B.C. against Saturninus, would have been suspicious of the planting of a veteran colony in their mining area, and he wonders whether a Latin colony was not their counter-proposal.

Although I believe the colony to have been Roman, I think its foundation may have had something to do with the gold mines of Victimulae. The Salassi had first been defeated by Appius Claudius in 143 (Livy, , Per. LIIIGoogle Scholar; Dio, fr. 74), and the gold mines were apparently let out to public contractors (Strabo IV, 205). They were not allowed to employ more than five thousand men (Pliny, , HN XXXIII, 66Google Scholar). Was the colony founded partly to control these financiers, or solely to protect them from the Salassi?

⁹² For the attacks of the Salassi even after the colony was founded see Strabo IV, 6, 205.