Latin, Greek, and Semitic names (CIL3.6680 =ILS3490). As its most recent read-
ing points out, the dedication confronts us with a number of questions. Did Flavia
Nicolais Saddane’s use of the name “Mater Matuta” point in some unproblematic
fashion to the same deity as was worshiped in Rome? Almost certainly not: Mater
Matuta was likely to have been the local interpretatio of the Greek goddess
Leucothea, who may herself have been identified with a local (Semitic) god.
About both these texts we should like to know when – and whence – the wor-
ship of their problematic gods began. How soon after the foundation of the colonies
did the worship of indigenous deities by Roman citizens begin? Through whose agency?
Was it the result of intermarriage? The importation of deities by the newly enfran-
chised? These texts are examples only, of a phenomenon widely attested in colonial
life. Some such dedications and leges sacraemay well reflect developments in local
religion away from whatever framework was imposed at the moment of foundation.
But we should be not therefore conclude that the developments to which they attest
amount to deviance, or a falling away from some ideal, for two reasons. First, the
one extensive colonial charter in our possession makes specific allowance for local
initiative; and, second, Roman religion at Rome was not static either.
Municipalities
As with colonies, so the legal and political frameworks defining the communities known
as municipia(municipalities) changed over time. The category emerges with some
distinctness in the legal landscape of the fourth century, though it has clear
antecedents in earlier arrangements between Rome and its neighbors. Its defining
characteristics at that time may be described as consisting in autonomy in matters
of self-governance for the community as a whole, together with a set of rights and
obligations attached to its citizens, in particular the obligation to serve in military
units in support of Roman campaigns, and the right to attain Roman citizenship
upon migration to Rome (Sherwin-White 1973; Humbert 1978). For our interests,
the subsequent history of the municipiumhas two principal turning points. The
first was the Social War, whose settlement issued in the enfranchisement of the
population of Italy but the classification of its communities as municipia(or, to
be precise, all its communities that were not already colonies). Second, starting at
the very end of the second century bcand continuing into the high empire, Roman
magistrates arranged for grants of municipal status to provincial cities. This latter
process seems to have achieved regular form in the reign of Augustus, when a model
charter was written that, in one form or another, was deployed throughout the west-
ern provinces (Galsterer 1987). These developments extended the concept of the
municipiumin two potentially contradictory ways: the settlement of the Social War
made concrete what had theretofore been merely potential, namely, the existence of
communities consisting entirely of Roman citizens but which nevertheless maintained
distinct traditions at the level of public law (including religion), while the drafting
of a model charter certainly had the potential to constrain the autonomy that once
served as the municipality’s distinguishing characteristic – precisely the issue upon
which Gellius remarked (see above). What in fact do we find?
436 Clifford Ando