by Gellius’ final lament, that the relevant bodies of law had by his day become “obscure
and largely forgotten.” The ignorance Gellius identifies is a product not simply of
changes in public law under the principate, but of the changing ideology of colon-
ization itself. It is by no means clear that the small maritime colonies of the early
third century bc, the much larger colonies north of the Po and west of the Alps of
the early second, and the abundant triumviral and Augustan veteran colonies of the
second half of the first centurybccan be understood as in any way conceived along
similar lines (Ando forthcoming a: ch. 3). In other words, to the extent that Gellius’
framework is meaningful, it is so in an avowedly high imperial context, by which
time the foundation of colonies ex nihilohad long since ceased (for a list of post-
Augustan colonies see Brunt 1987: 589– 601). Awareness of that fact only heightens
the irony of understanding republican colonialism in light of Gellius, for the speech
of Hadrian that aroused Gellius’ interest concerns exactly two already extant cities,
both municipia, seeking precisely to “come into citizenship from without.”
Rather than take the purpose and form of colonies for granted, we need to test
precisely whether they did, in fact, “have all the laws and institutions of the Roman
people.” Not that it is obvious what it would mean for them to do so! For ex-
ample, in a speech to the people in 63 bc, opposing a proposal to establish further
colonies in Campania, Cicero told them of a visit he had made to a then recently
founded colony at Capua:
First, as I have said, although in other colonies the chief magistrates are called
duumviri, (at Capua) they wish to be called praetors. If the first year in office brought
this desire to them, don’t you suppose that in a few years they will seek the title of
consul? Then, two lictors preceded them: not with staffs, but with fasces, like those who
precede the urban praetors here! The greater victims were located in the forum, to be
approved on consultation by those praetors from the tribunal as is done by us consuls;
the victims were then sacrificed, to the accompaniment of a herald and musician.
(Cic. Leg. agr.2.93)Cicero here argues that it was very precisely the continuance of the colonists’ Roman
citizenship – their remaining within the populus Romanus – that should have
precluded Capua’s becoming an effigies parva populi Romani, with strictly parallel
institutions, priesthoods, magistracies, and rituals.
As it happens, the first and in some respects the only period of Roman coloniza-
tion when practice and theory are well and equally attested is that which followed
shortly upon the death of Cicero and lasted into the reign of Augustus. For in that
period not only were many colonies founded – whose sites have yielded important
archaeological, numismatic, and epigraphic evidence regarding their initial occupation
- but many works of social, religious, and political history were written, in which
the foundation of cities and the expansion of the populus Romanus were both
theorized and described (regarding literature on religion of this period, see C. Koch
1960; Momigliano 1984; Beard 1986). Nor can there be much doubt that the work
performed in these arenas influenced each other.
Consider, for example, the foundation of Rome by Romulus. Most Augustan and
post-Augustan accounts of that act urge that he established the religious boundary
432 Clifford Ando