CHAPTER 29
Romans and Italians
Gary D. Farney
Roman Plural Identity
I do think that all municipal men have two homelands (duae patriae), one by nature and the
other by citizenship....It is necessary for the latter to stand first in our affection, through
which the name “Republic” has attached itself to us all. For this we must die, for this we
must give ourselves entirely, and for this we must give all of our possessions as though for
sacrifice. But that homeland which has raised us is no less dear than that which has adopted
us. Thus I shall never say that this is not my homeland, though that one is greater and this
is contained in it. [In this way every municipal man] has [two] states, but thinks of them as
one.(Cicero,De Legibus2.5)As Cicero indicates here, he was in fact amuniceps, a man from a subject municipal-
ity. In his case, this municipality was Arpinum, a town inLatium adiectum, “Farther
Latium,” a region so designated because of its distance from the capital, and to dis-
tinguish it fromLatium vetus, “Old Latium,” which consisted of communities around
the Alban Hills, such as Rome, that had colonized “Farther Latium.” Arpinum had only
received full citizenship from Rome in 188BCE, and had produced as major political play-
ers at Rome not only Cicero but also the famous general and politician Gaius Marius.
Although Cicero here specifies themunicepsfor this peculiar situation ofduae patriae,
he may only have regarded this situation as particularly acute for men such as himself.
After all, they had come to the capital from their Italian subject communities within
historical memory.
However, in a manner so unlike the “autochthonous” Athenians (see Chapter 16 by
James Roy in this volume), even Roman nobles of the most ancient origin acknowl-
edged and celebrated their family’s arrival from Latin or Sabine towns outside of
A Companion to Ethnicity in the Ancient Mediterranean, First Edition. Edited by Jeremy McInerney.
© 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Published 2014 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.