Continues from my page: ‘From Conquest to Municipalisation  Page (1)’

Legal Status of Fulginia before the Social War

As discussed above, the only hard evidence we have for the legal status of Fulginia between the Roman conquest and the Social Wars comes from  Cicero now-lost speech “Pro Vareno” , which Jane Crawford (referenced below, at p. 9) tentatively dated the trial to the period 77-6 BC.  According to Priscian (‘Institutiones Grammaticae: de Nomine’ 2, 348, 18-20; search on “Fulginate”):

1. “Cicero ‘pro Vareno’:        «G(aius) Ancharius Rufus fuit e municipio Fulginate»:
   

2.    idem in eadem:                «in praefectura Fulginate»”
   

which I translate as:

1. “Cicero, in ‘pro Vareno’:    «G(aius) Ancharius Rufus was from the municipium of Fulginia;           and, in the same work:       «[something of relevance occurred] in the prefecture of Fulginia”.
   

The fortunate survival of this fragment thus reveals that the legal status of Fulginia had changed at some point during the time span of the events recounted by Cicero, albeit that both the direction of the change of status and its timing are matters for speculation.  All we know with relative certainty is that, as discussed on the following page, Fulginia was a municipium administered by quattuorviri in the early imperial period.

There is certainly room for debate: for example, as noted above, according to Edward Bispham (referenced below, at p. 472), these fragments suggest that Fulginia was  :

1. “... a municipium, but still subject to a [prefect] in the early 1st century BC.”
   

However, it seems to me that the most likely scenario is that put forward by both:

1. ✴Guy Bradley (referenced below, at p. 143):
   

2. “Fulginia was probably a Roman prefecture until the Social Wars, after which it became a municipium”; and
   

3. ✴Simone Sisani (referenced below, 2007, at p. 141): 
   

4. “...the reference by Cicero to a ‘prefectura Fulginiatum’ should be related to the status of the settlement prior to the Social Wars” (my translation). 
   

In other words, Cicero had given the court an account of relevant events that had taken place before the Social Wars, when Fulginia had been a prefecture, presumably as background to his version of the events surrounding the murder of ca. 80 BC, by which time Fulginia was a municipium. 

What this surviving fragment does not tell us is when and in what circumstances Fulginia was designated as a prefecture.  As already mentioned, the only potentially relevant information at our disposal comes from the inscription ST UM 6, which indicates that:

1. ✴a substantial urban centre near the later site of San Pietro in Flamignano (between the modern cities of Foligno and Trevi) was administered by marones in ca. 220; and
   

2. ✴that this centre is likely, although not certain, to have been Fulginia.
   

Modern Scholarship on the Legal Status of Fulginia

In the sections below, I summarise the different conclusions of four modern scholars: Giuliana Galli and Paolo Camerieri; Guy Bradley and Simone Sisani, on the legal status of Fulginia in the 3rd century BC.  Each of them provided an extensive review of earlier work and thus, between them, capture the essence of most the modern debate.

Giuliana Galli and Paolo Camerieri

Topography of the putative Roman city of Fulginia on the site of of modern Foligno

Adapted from Paolo Camerieri (referenced below, 2015, p. 106, Figure 14)

I have added the question marks to the designations “Pertica of Fulginia ?”

My P(CM) = ford (later bridge) that took the cardo maximus of this putative Roman city across the Topino

Giuliana Galli and Paolo Camerieri (in separate articles in the book edited by the former in 2015, referenced below) argued that the Romans established a castrum on the site of modern Foligno (the plan of which is, in their view, still reflected in part of the street  of the city).  Paolo Camerieri (2015, at p. 92) then made a very important observation: in his view, the junction of the ancient roads that related (respectively) to the deCumaenus maximus and the  cardo maximus of the putative Roman city is almost a textbook example of an angulus clusaris (closing angle) of the centuriated area that can be identified to the west of modern Foligno (which I have marked ‘pertica of Fulginia ?’ in the plan above.  He explained (at p. 77, note 111) that:

1. “[Fulginia] was not identified [as a possible owner of this land in earlier research, in which] the whole plain between Bevagna and the Via Centrale Umbra [below Hispellum] was assigned to [Mevania] in an uncritical way.  [This was because] most local scholars placed Fulginia at Santa Maria in Campis, on the [eastern branch of] Via Flaminia, and its territory was assumed to lie entirely on the [south side] of the Topino [Tinia]” (my translation).
   

However, he noted that there was  no particular coherence between this centuration and the street plan of Roman Mevania, which led him to conclude that this territory had more probably belonged to Fulginia, which was thus (in his view) correctly located at modern Foligno. 

Paolo Camerieri (2015, at pp. 85-7) deduced the circumstances in which the putative castrum was built from the orientation of this deCumaenus maximus.  He began by asking rhetorically why:

1. “... the deCumaenus maximus , the most important street of a Roman city, coincided [in the case of Fulginia] with neither branch of Via Flaminia ...” (my translation).
   

Instead, it coincided with a road that he designated as Via Todina, and described as the ‘proto-Flaminia’.  Since this road  probably declined in importance after the establishment of the Latin colony of Spoletium in 241 BC and would certainly have been eclipsed by the construction of the Via Flaminia in 220 BC, he concluded (at p. 87) that the castrum must have been built before 241 BC.  He then asked (again at  p. 87):

1. “... which event would have been of such importance to determine such the early Romanisation of this part of Umbria?” (my translation).
   

His answer was that:

1. “The only likely event of which we are aware concerns the war between Umbrians and Romans, and in particular the battle that took place on the plain between Bevagna and Foligno in 308 BC [recorded by Livy ((‘History of Rome’, 9:41)]” (my translation)
   

He therefore suggested that the putative castrum at Foligno had originated with the camp that the consul Quintus Fabius Maximus Rullianus had been building when he was attacked by the Umbrians in 308 BC. 

As noted above, the suggestion that Foligno had its roots in a Roman city of any kind is by no means universally accepted.  However, the topographical link between:

1. ✴the  cardo maximus of this putative Roman city;
   

2. ✴the ford (later bridge) that must have taken it it over the Tinia;
   

3. ✴the orientation of Camerieri’s “Via Centrale Umbra” (Paul Fontaine’s road 15 in the maps above); and
   

4. ✴the centuriation to the southwest of it (which had previously been assigned to Mevania);
   

is hard to deny.  I will return to this point below: what is important here are the deductions that Paolo Camerieri and Giuliana Galli made from these topographical data as they relate to the legal status of Fulginia before the Social War.

 

Paolo Camerieri did not give a specific date at which, in his view, the putative castrum at Foligno was urbanised and established as a prefecture.  He  observed (at pp. 91-2) that:

1. “We  do not know the legal form that Fulginia assumed in the act of its foundation, but ... it was in any case assigned a vast territory in the [plain between Mevania and Hispellum.  This would have represented] a bridgehead of viritane settlement, probably under the jurisdiction of the Latin colony of Narnia [formed in 299 BC], governed as a Roman prefecture and soon entrusted to the military protection of the new Latin colony of Spoletium [formed in 241 BC]” (my translation).
   

I am not sure what is meant by this reference to the jurisdiction of Narnia.  Putting that to one side, I assume from this passage that, in Camerieri’s view, Fulginia was “governed as a Roman prefecture”at least by 241, when it was entrusted to the military protection Spoletium.

Giuliana Galli (referenced below, 2015, at p. 38) also summarised this model of this early history:

1. “... Fulginia, which was an obscure Umbrian centre in the period between the 10th and 4th centuries BC, was affected by the distribution of territory to Roman army veterans [in the early 3rd century BC: these veterans were settled on land that was] divided into centuries in the valley between Hispellum (Spello) ... and Mevania (Bevagna) and assigned to the Cornelia tribe. ... We do not know how the foundation act [of this urban centre] was framed from an administrative point of view, but it probably took the status of prefecture” (my translation).
   

In summary, if I have understood them correctly, Galli and Camerieri suggested that:

1. ✴Roman veterans were settled in the plain between Mevania and Hispellum soon after the conquest and assigned to the Cornelia; and
   

2. ✴an erstwhile castrum on the site of modern Foligno was established as a prefecture in order to administer their affairs; and
   

3. ✴the land assigned to them was centuriated on a grid that was coherently oriented in relation to what had been the decumaenus maximus and the via principalis of the erstwhile castrum, now respectively the deCumaenus maximus and cardo maximus of the ‘new city’ of Fulginia.
   

In other words, within decades of the Roman conquest of Umbria, Fulginia was “born” as a Roman prefecture assigned to the Cornelia.

Evidence of ST UM 6

Giuliana Galli (referenced below, 2015, at p. 38 and note 33) was aware of the potential problem for this model that was posed by ST UM 6: a prefecture established for Roman veterans relatively soon after the conquest would surely not have been administered by marones in the early 3rd century BC.  She addressed it by suggesting that, at some time before the date of this inscription:

1. “... according to [Cicero’s speech “Pro Vareno”], the city became a municipium and then again a prefecture: it is plausible that, after its initial foundation, Fulginia enjoyed a period of autonomy as a municipium with two or four local magistrates , becoming a prefecture again ... as punishment for the city’s rebellion, together with Spoleto, during the 1st century BC [presumably at the time of Sulla]” (my translation and my bold italics). 
   

In other words, she assumed that Cicero’s reference to a prefecture of Fulginia (discussed above) indicated that this was its status at the time of his speech “pro Vareno” and that it had previously enjoyed a period of autonomy as a municipium with administered by a pair of marones and possibly two other magistrates whose magistracy was expressed in the Umbrian language.   This putative period of autonomy presumably dated back until at least the date of ST UM 6. 

I have to say that I find this scenario difficult to understand:

1. ✴It is difficult to conceive of the circumstances in which a prefecture created soon after the conquest to administer the affairs of Roman settlers would have wanted or been given autonomy from Rome and constituted as a municipium administered by marones only a few decades later.
   

2. ✴In any case, Cicero is our only source for the information that Fulginia ever had the status of a prefecture.  If, as Galli suggested, he was referring to its status during a brief and otherwise undocumented period of ‘relegation’ after the Social War, then we have no basis for assuming it had ever held this status before this time.
   

In my view, if we accept the proposition of Giuliana Galli and Paolo Camerieri - that Fulginia was incorporated into the Roman state as a prefecture settled by Roman veterans assigned to the Cornelia soon after the Roman conquest - then we should probably conclude that the marones of ST UM 6 held office elsewhere. 

Guy Bradley 

According Guy Bradley (referenced below, at p. 139):

1. “... there is evidence ... that the pre-existing Umbrian [community] of Fulginia ... [was] incorporated [into the Roman state] with civitas sine suffragio [i.e. citizenship without voting rights] and that it [subsequently] became [a prefecture] in the period before the Social War.”
   

[I have edited out the parallel references to Plestia in this passage in  the interests of clarity.]  I am not sure what constitutes this evidence for the initial incorporation of Fulginia without voting rights, but it might have been a consequence of his assumption that it subsequently became a prefecture: he might have been following Michel Humbert (referenced below, at  p. 3480), who asserted that:

1. “... the civitas sine suffragio represented a transitional phase, usually leading to a period of Romanisation  ...and full citizenship” (my translation).
   

In relation to the likely date at which the initial incorporation of Fulginia occurred, Bradley suggested (at p. 140) that:

1. “The aftermath of the Battle of Sentinum [295 BC] seems ... a likely occasion, although it is also possible that [it] happened either: after the defeat [of the Umbrians] in 308 BC; or later than the defeat of the Sabines [in 290 BC].”
   

Guy Bradley then  referred (at p. 144) to the following passage by Michel Humbert (referenced below, at  p. 225):

1. “We propose to attribute the extension of political rights to the [erstwhile] cives sine suffragio  of ... Fulginia to 22o BC [the period in which Fulginia was assigned to the Cornelia]” (my translation).
   

He (Bradley) summarised (at pp. 144-5) the arguments that underpin the hypothesis that Fulginia was assigned to the Cornelia at that time:

1. ✴[These arguments] had begun with the work of Lily Ross Taylor (referenced below, at pp. 91-2), who observed that:
   

2. “Forum Flaminii, which was presumably founded by C. Flaminius on his great road [in ca. 220 BC], was in the Oufentina [tribe], which was also made the tribe of neighbouring  Plestia.”
   

3. She suggested (at p. 306) that:
   

4. “[While] it is possible that the Oufentina ... was the tribe of Flaminius [himself], ... it is also possible that ... [this assignation simply] represented an attempt on [his] part ... to gain [political support] in certain tribes [including the Oufentina] by adding to them men who would be under obligation to him.”
   

5. Of course, now that the Via Flaminia existed, such men (presumably recent settlers from Rome) would find it relatively easy to return there in order to vote.
   

6. ✴They had been taken forward by Michel Humbert (referenced below, at p. 225), who suggested that, in response, Lucius Aemilius Papus, who was Flaminius’ colleague as censor in 220 BC, arranged for Fulginia to be assigned to the Cornelia, the tribe of his (Aemilius’) allies, the Cornelii Scipiones”.
   

Bradley himself (at p. 145) considered these to be “plausible reconstructions”, which suggests that he too believed that Fulginia had been elevated to the status of a prefecture and assigned to the Cornelia in ca. 220 BC.

On this model, Fulginia had been a civitas sine suffragio in the period between the conquest and 220 BC.  Bradley suggested (at p. 143) that the inscription ST UM 6 (above):

1. “... shows that [Fulginia] retained the Umbrian marones after its [initial] incorporation into the Roman state.”
   

He suggested (also at p. 143) that:

1. “... the praefectura [continued to be] governed by marones, who were replaced by quattuorviri when Fulginia became a municipium [after the Social War]”.
   

In other words, if I understand him correctly, Bradley assumed that Fulginia:

1. ✴was incorporated into the Roman state without voting rights at the time of the conquest, albeit that it continued to be administered by local magistrates who kept the Umbrian title of marones; 
   

2. ✴was given voting rights as a prefecture and assigned to the Cornelia in ca. 220 BC, but retained its marones; and
   

3. ✴became a municipium administered by quattuorviri after the Social Wars.
   

Simone Sisani

In sharp contrast, Simone Sisani (referenced below, 2007, at p. 142) argued that:

1. “The use of the Umbrian language [in the inscription ST UM 6] and, above all, the ‘local’ nature of its administration [by marones], make it certain that Fulginia was still an autonomous centre [in ca. 220 BC]” (my translation and my bold italics).
   

On this model, Fulginia was not incorporated into the Roman state until some time after 220 BC, when it became a prefecture and was assigned to the Cornelia. 

For Simone Sisani (referenced below, 2007, at p. 218), this could  not have taken place in 220 BC (as Micel Humbert had suggested): the fact that the adjacent centres of Forum Flaminii and Fulginia were assigned to different tribes was :

1. “... explicable only by separating the colonising initiatives that were responsible for the extension of the two tribes [the Oufentina and the Cornelia] into the area.  [This] is confirmed by the different chronologies that can be deduced for these extensions:
   

2. •while Forum Flaminii was certainly established in 220 BC;
   

3. •the prefecture of Fulginia could not have been established before the end of the 3rd century BC, when it was still administered [by marones, as evidenced by ST UM 6]” (my translation).
   

Simone Sisani argued that the subsequent establishment of the prefecture of Fulginia:

1. “... can be closely associated with the viritane settlement in 200-199 BC of veterans of the war against Hannibal.  This is confirmed by the assignation of Fulginia to the Cornelia, ... which was probably [the tribe] of the instigator of this settlement, P. Cornelius Scipio Africanus” (my translation).
   

In order to substantiate his hypothesis, Sisani pointed out that, according to Livy’s account of the events of 199 BC, when Scipio Africanus held the post of princeps senatus, the praetorship of Caius Sergius Plautus was extended into the following year:

1. “... so that he might superintend the distribution of land to the soldiers who had served for many years in Spain, Sicily, and Sardinia ...” (‘History of Rome’, 32: 1: 6).
   

Sisani reasonably suggested that Scipio had probably arranged for Sergius’ term of office to be prorogued in order facilitate the settlement of his own veterans, and hypothesised that Fulginia’s assignation to the Cornelia tribe suggests that some of these veterans were settled here.  

In other words, in Sisani’s view, Fulginia:

1. ✴continued after the conquest as a nominally independent centre administered by marones, a situation that pertained until at least 220 BC; 
   

2. ✴received veteran settlers who were assigned to the Cornelia in ca. 199 BC, at which point it lost its administrative autonomy and became a prefecture; and
   

3. ✴became a municipium administered by quattuorviri after the Social Wars.
   

Legal Status of Fulginia: My View

Thus we have three distinct hypotheses  relating to the date at which Fulginia became a prefecture:

1. ✴at some time between the Roman conquest and ca. 241 BC (Galli and Camerieri);
   

2. ✴in 220 BC, after an earlier period that began soon after the conquest during which it was a civitas sine suffragio (Bradley);
   

3. ✴after ca. 220 BC, the likely date of ST UM 6, probably in ca. 199 BC, when (in Sisani’s view) veterans of the army of Scipio Africanus were settled in the Valle Umbra (Sisani).
   

If Simone Sisani was correct when he asserted that the evidence of ST UM 6 makes it certain that Fulginia was still an autonomous centre in the late 3rd century BC, then the first two hypotheses can be discarded. 

Epigraphic Evidence for Uhteres and Marones

As noted above. Simone Sisani (referenced below, 2007, at p. 249) asserted that, after the conquest:

1. “The administrative structure of [the Umbrian communities that still enjoyed nominal independence, albeit  under Roman hegemony] appears to have been based on a college formed by two pairs of magistrates: the auctores [or uhteres]; and the marones.  [The auctores seem to have been] the leading magistrates within the college.  ... the marones seem to have been of an inferior status, with a function associated with ... public works” ” (my translation).
   

In fact, we know of four cities in Umbria, in addition to the city of ST UM 6, that were administered by uhteres and/ or marones at some time before the Social Wars:

1. ✴Iguvium (Gubbio): the Iguvine Tables mention uhteres and, since those in Table Va seem to have been named as a dating device, these were probably secular magistrates.   This table, which uses the Latin alphabet, was probably inscribed in the 2nd century BC, but its text was probably taken from an earlier source.
   

2. ✴Mevania (Bevagna) was the source of two relevant inscriptions:
   

3. •ST Um 25 (2nd century BC), a funerary inscription from Bevagna that uses an Etruscan alphabet, commemorates a uhter: and
   

4. •AE 1965, 279a, a Latin inscription from the municipal period that was found at Montefalco (which probably belonged to Mevania at that time), identified a now-anonymous ‘marone’ whose anachronistic designation as a marone probably harked back to an earlier magistracy with this title at Mevania.
   

5. As noted above, we cannot rule out the possibility that ST UM 6 related to Mevania.
   

6. ✴Tadinum (Gualdo Tadino): ST UM 7 (probably late 2nd century BC), which came from the way station of Helvillum on Via Flaminia and which used the Latin alphabet, records a bia (fountain) dedicated to the Umbrian goddess Cupra and a cistern that was built at a specified cost in the period of office of two named marones who probably held office at Tadinum (some 9 km south of Helvillum).
   

7. ✴Asisium (Assisi) was also the source of two relevant inscriptions:
   

8. •CIL XI 5390 (140 -100 BC), a Latin inscription that survives in situ in the Duomo of Assisi, records the building of a cistern and a terrace wall and names six marones, who are usually assumed to have held office in pairs in three consecutive years; and
   

9. •ST Um 10 (120 - 90 BC), an inscription that uses the Latin alphabet and was found at Ospedalicchio, near Bastia (between Assisi and Perugia), refers to a piece of land that had been bought and delimited by (or during the year in office of) two named uhteres and two named marones.
   

10. Since Nero Babrius was named as a marone in CIL XI 5390 and as a uhter in ST UM 10,  we know that both inscriptions record magistrates of Asisium.
    

As far as we know, Iguvium, Mevania and Asisium all remained nominally independent until the Social War, when they became municipia administered by quattuorviri.  Thus:

1. ✴all of them were autonomous at the dates of the respective inscription; and
   

2. ✴the evidence from Assisi suggests thatthey retained the designations ‘uhter’ and ‘marone’ for their magistrates until the Social War.
   

The case of Tadinum is less clear, since another inscription (CIL XI 5802, 30 BC - 30 AD) from Costacciaro (which was some 17 km north of Tadinum) commemorates the duovir Cnaeus Disinius: 

1. ✴According to Guy Bradley (at p. 139), this magistracy was typical of centres that had had Roman status before the Social War.  If this is correct, and if Disinius was a duovir of  Tadinum in the early imperial period, then Tadinum might have been incorporated into the Roman state before the Social War. Guy Bradley (again at p. 139) considered this hypothesis  to be suggestive and observed (at note 121) that:
   

2. “The marones of [ST UM 7] surely also pertain to Tadinum, which would mean that this centre retained its native magistracy [after its putative early incorporation into the Roman state]; these [marones] would, on this interpretation, have become duoviri on municipalisation.”
   

3. ✴However, it is by no means certain that Disinius was a duovir of Tadinum: for example, Maria Carla Spadoni (in L. Rosi Bonci and M. C. Spadoni (Eds), referenced below, at pp. 229-30, entry 3) suggested that he had more probably been a duovir of Arna, and pointed out that there is no hard evidence to suggest that Tadinum was other than a municipium administered by quattuorviri at the time of CIL XI 5802.  
   

Thus, in all probability, all four of these centres - Iguvium, Mevania, Tadinum and Asisium - were nominally autonomous centres administered by uhteres and/ or marones, at least until the dates of the respective inscriptions and probably until they were incorporated into the Roman state following the Social War. 

The ‘Oscan’ Meddices

The word meddix (magistrate) has been recorded in many Oscan-speaking cities and indeed, there is early evidence of meddices at Umbrian-speaking Asisium (prior to the emergence of Umbrian uhteres and marones there, as discussed above).  This term was often qualified by an adjective, as in  meddix tuticus (chief magistrate).  In the present context, it would be interesting to know whether this magistracy (or, at least, its Oscan designation) survived the incorporation into the Roman state of the cities in question.

There is at least one case in which it certainly did: Henrik Mouritsen (referenced below, at p. 151) described the case of Capua, which was incorporated in 338 BC and is:

1. “... the only civitas sine suffragio known to us in any detail: ... [By] the time that [it had defected to] Hannibal in 216 BC, it appears very much to have been a self-governing Oscan-speaking community.  It maintained its own traditional magistrates [led by a meddix tuticus] ... ” (see, for Livy, ‘History of Rome’, 23: 5.9 and 26:6.13).
   

Edward Salmon (referenced below, at p. 86) noted that:

1. “At  Capua, there was a single meddix tuticus Campanus until the Romans suppressed its local government [after the failure of the revolt] in 211 BC” (my changed order of phrases).
   

In other words, the Capuans were administered by a meddix tuticus for more than a century after their incorporation, and only forfeited this privilege when they rebelled against Rome. 

However, Adrian Sherwin-White (referenced below, at p. 205) referred to two classes of civitates sine suffragio:

1. ✴The first class, to which Capua belonged, which:
   

2. “... secured the status in more or less friendly circumstances and retained full local autonomy, [were located] principally in Campania and Volscium ...”
   

3. ✴The second class comprised:
   

4. “... those [centres] on which the status was thrust or whose status was altered after rebellion, reconquest, and confiscation of lands.  [They] were allowed only a reduced measure of autonomy or none at all ... , their existing magistracies being frequently limited to priestly functions.”
   

Although detailed evidence is had to come by (particularly in the period 292-218 BC, in which Livy’s accounts are lost), we might reasonably assume that most of those civitates sine suffragio that were created at Oscan-speaking centres in the 3rd century BC, when the dominance of Rome within peninsular Italy was established, belonged to the second class.  

[According to Nikoletta Farkas (referenced below, at p. 21, note 46):

1. “An inscription (ST Sa 17) from Aufidena attests the office of meddix tuticus [chief magistrate, expressed in the Oscan language] at a time when the town probably was a praefectura.”]
   

The ‘Sabine’ Octovirate

Ronald Syme (referenced below, at p. 295) observed that:

1. “A peculiar form of magistracy, the octovirate, is found in the imperial age in certain Sabine communities [that share] a common history: they had all been incorporated in the first instance with the civitas sine suffragio [and then] advanced rapidly to the full citizenship but continued to be prefectures.  Octoviri are attested at [Sabine] Amiternum, Trebula Mutuesca and Nursia, and also at Interamna Praetuttiorum, which .... might not unreasonably be described as originally Sabine.  .... There were also octoviri at Plestia in Umbria ... Not that this debilitates the view that octoviri are an ethnic or regional phenomenon, ... : Plestia is contiguous with the north of Sabine country.”
   

Syme  pointed out that the octovirate has been the subject of prolonged discussion and sharp disagreement.  He then addressed the two main streams of scholarship on the matter:

1. ✴He observed that:
   

2. “One theory maintains that [the octovirate] was a type of of municipal constitution imposed by [Rome] in prefectures at a definite period in the 3rd century BC.” 
   

3. This theory probably originated with Hans Rudolph (referenced below, 1935): I have not been able to consult this book but, in a review of it, Henry Stuart Jones (referenced below, at p. 269) expressed his opinion that:
   

4. “[Rudolph] ... makes out a strong case for the view that [the octovirate] was imposed by Rome in 268 BC, not only on the three Sabine [orefectutres] of Amiternum, Nursia and Trebula Mutuesca, but on all communities [that Rome] admitted to her citizenship [at that time].”
   

5. However, for Syme:
   

6. “[Rudolph’s] view presupposes much more plan and uniformity in Roman dealings with local affairs than is proved or plausible.”
   

7. ✴He was therefore of the opinion that:
   

8. “There is more to be said for the traditional assumption [which was first articulated by Arthur Rosenberg (referenced below, 1913),] that the octovirate was an ethnic (or at least a regional) form of magistracy that survived where it had grown up and was not disturbed by [Rome].  [After all], who cared?”
   

9. This was also apparently the view of Adrian Sherwin-White (referenced below, at p. 66), for whom:
   

10. “... the words octovir [and, at other centres, aedilis] are admittedly translations of [pre-Roman] terms [that are] unknown to us, introduced with the advancing Latinisation of the peninsular.”
    

11. However, not everyone accepted Rosenberg’s view: for example, Henry Stuart Jones (as above) asserted that:
    

12. “[Rudolph] is doubtless right in rejecting Rosenberg’s theory of the Sabine origin [of the octovirate].”
    

More recently Guy Bradley (referenced below, 2000, at p. 140), who considered both schools of thought, concluded that:

1. “It is not known for certain whether the octovirate was:
   

2. - created by the Romans [as Rudolph proposed]; or
   

3. - a local magistracy from the pre-Roman period whose name was [subsequently] Latinised [as Rosenberg proposed].”
   

Edward Bispham (referenced below, 2008, at p. 372 , note 200) plumped for Rudolph:

1. “[Arthur] Rosenberg saw the quattuorvirate as an evolution of the octovirate; rather [by which I think he means ‘more correctly’], some octoviral municipia became quattuorviral at a later stage in their evolution.  The two magistracies probably do have in common [the fact] that they were, in a sense, artificial Roman creations applied to different geographical areas: in the case of the octovirate, probably meeting a requirement generated by a scattered settlement pattern of the territories concerned” (my bold italics).
   

In short, opinion remains divided.  Obviously, if Rosenberg and Syme are correct, then the presence of octoviri in Italy possibly indicates the survival of ethnic magistracies after incorporation.  However, I use the word “possibly” here because, even if we discount Rudolph’s alternative theory, we must still remember that:

1. ✴We have no documentary evidence for the octovirate and our understanding of it derives entirely from inscriptions.
   

2. ✴Although these surviving inscriptions mostly come from centres that were incorporated at an early date, those that can be dated belong to the imperial period.  We thus have no evidence of any kind for the putative Oscan precursors of the octoviri.  
   

3. ✴In at least some cases, the recorded  octoviri might have belonged to non-decurial, possibly priestly, colleges.  Again, not everyone would accept that:
   

4. •Simone Sisani (referenced below, 2010, at p. 192 and note 118) asserted that those  octoviri in the centres that he had analysed that were not explicitly designated as octoviri Augustales were magistrates.
   

5. •Amanda Coles (referenced below, at p. 194) argued that this might well have applied in other centres, even when the octovir in question was a freedman.  Specifically, she noted that:
   

6. “... there are three libertini octoviri, [in surviving inscriptions] from: [Plestia] and Ameria in Umbria; and from Trebula Mutuesca in Samnium”;
   

7. but concluded (at p. 195) that, since there are known cases in yet other centre in which freedmen held other decurial offices:
   

8. “... the [octovirate] at Ameria, [Plestia] and Trebula Mutuesca ...need not be dismissed as a religious office, merely because freedmen held it.”
   

9. Note that Coles’ inscription I 21 (AE 1991, 646), which she attributed to Fulginia, actually came from nearby Plestia (modern Colfiorito), and I have amended the passages above accordingly, replacing ‘Fulginia’ by [Plestia].
   

10. However, leaving status aside, we cannot assume that octoviri (as opposed to as octoviri Augustales) were necessarily magistrates: after all, the term seviri was used in some centres for colleges that were functionally analogous to the seviri Augustales or Augustales in others (often described collectively as “*Augstales”, as in Margaret Laird, referenced below, at p. 5, note 12).
    

All this boils down to the fact that it is possible, but not certain, that the ‘Sabine’ octovirate indicates, at least some cases, an ethnic magistracy that survived incorporation into the Roman state.  However, while (as noted above) we have documentary and epigraphic evidence for meddices, uhteres and marones in the Republican period, we have no indication of either:

1. ✴the ethnic name(s) of the putative precursors of the ‘Sabine’ octovirate; or
   

2. ✴how long these names survived after incorporation before they were Latinised.
   

Thus, the little we know about this Sabine experience throws little, if any, light on the question under discussion here: whether Umbrian magistracies (uhteres and marones) survived without Latinisation at centres incorporated into the Roman state and, if so, for how long.

Legal Status of Fulginia before the Social War: My Preliminary View

The epigraphic evidence (assembled above) does not, of course, prove without doubt Sisani’s assertion that uhteres and marones held office only in nominally autonomous Umbrian cities.  However:

1. ✴this was certainly the situation at Iguvium, Mevania and Asisium and probably the also at Tadinum; and
   

2. ✴we have no surviving epigraphic evidence for these magistracies in any Umbrian centre at a time that it had certainly been incorporated into  the Roman state.
   

Thus, it seems to me that, at least on the basis of the evidence from Umbria, we must assume that:

1. ✴either ST UM 6 does not belong to the corpus of Fulginia;
   

2. ✴or, following  Simone Sisan, Fulginia was incorporated into the Roman State only after 220 BC, the probable terminus post quem for ST UM 6.
   

Of these, the second scenario seems to be the more likely.  My attempt to look for evidence further afield taht might preclude this “working assumption” was hardly comprehensive.  However, I have not found anything yet that suggests that ethnic magistracies elsewhere survived incorporation for significant periods, at least in centres that were incorporated in or after the 3rd century BC.

In short, it seems likely that Fulginia was first incorporated into the Roman state at some time  in the period 220 - 90 BC.  Simone Sisani (referenced below, at pp. 142) narrowed the range somewhat by pointing out that Quinus Satilienus , who was recorded in Rome with senatorial status in 140 BC, belonged to the Cornelia and probably came from Fulginia.  He therefore suggested that the incorporation occurred  at some time on the period 220 - 140 BC:

1. “... probably as a consequence of viritane settlement in the area ...”
   

Thus, we need to consider when within this period such settlement might have taken place.  Before addressing this question, I would like to revisit the suggestion of Giovanna Galli and Paolo Camerieri (above), that the centuriation to the west of modern Foligno significantly pre-dates this period. 

Castrum at Foligno ?

Detail from Paul Fontaine (referenced below, appended map of western Umbria)

Fontaine located Fulginia at Santa Maria in Campis, on the eastern branch of Via Flaminia

I have added the alternative possibility: the site of modern Foligno, on the eastern side of the Tinia/ Topino

As noted above, Giuliana Galli and Paolo Camerieri, in a series of articles in two books (referenced below, 2015 and 2016), hypothesised the existence of a Roman castrum that was:

1. ✴built on the site of modern Foligno before 241 BC (and probably in 308 BC); and
   

2. ✴subsequently urbanised as the prefecture of Fulginia, which administered the affairs of Roman citizens who had been settled on the centuriated area to the west.
   

Using the topographical information from Camerieri and Galli, I have located this putative castrum on Paul Fontaine’s map (above), at the junction of:

1. ✴his road 15, which linked Perusia to Asisium, Hispellum and Spoletium; and
   

2. ✴a hypothetical link between his roads 6 and 11, which Paolo Camerieri (2015, at pp. 85-7) designated as Via Todina.  Camerieri characterised this as the ‘proto-Flaminia’, which connected  Rome to the Adriatic coast via Tuder (modern Todi) and the Apennine pass at Plestia (near modern Colfiorito).
   

Inner two of the four bridges on the Tinia in its original course at Foligno (which I have labelled P2 and P3)

(after Luigi Crema, see G. Dominici, referenced below)

Putative castrum at Foligno, after P. Camerieri and G. Galli, (referenced below, 2015 and 2016), superimposed on an aerial view of the modern city 

In the plan above, I have also located the putative castrum in relation to the inner two bridges at Foligno (which I have labelled P2 and P3) that span the canal that indicates the original course of the Tinia in its original course at Foligno: the upper part of this composite is from a drawing made by Luigi Crema that was published by Giovanni Dominici, referenced below).  The present bridge P2, of which four out of the original five arches survive,  is now known as the the Ponte di San Giovanni dell’ Acqua.  Some scholars insist that the surviving structure is entirely medieval: for example, Matelda Albanesi (in Guerrini and Latini, referenced below, Appendix II, pp. 354-6) acknowledged that Luigi Crema had given it Roman origins, but she asserted that this view was erroneous.  She commented (at p. 355), that the only excavations carried out so far:

1. “ ... revealed the western side of the bridge as far as the third arch, which presented (like the first arch) a rib of travertine blocks ... that probably derived from a Roman monument, evidence that has  sometimes given rise to the erroneous dating of the work [to the Roman period]” (my translation).
   

Her reasons for assuming that the Roman masonry in question came from another monument (rather than, for example, from an earlier Roman bridge here) were unspecified.  It seems to me that the evidence from the ancient road network insists that there must have been a bridge here from at least 220 BC.

It also seems to me that at least two things leap out from this topographical analysis:

1. ✴this would have been an obvious location for a Roman castrum, offering excellent supply lines and a ready source of water for ditch-based defences; and
   

2. ✴there is, indeed,  a strong case to be made, at least in topographical terms, for the hypothesis that the plan of this putative castrum is still reflected in the street plan of modern Foligno (which does not, of course, allow us to ignore other evidence that might militate against this possibility).
   

Date of Construction of the Putative Castrum: My View

As noted above, Paolo Camerieri (referenced below, 2015, at pp. 91-2) believed that this putative castrum had been built in 308 BC and that putative prefecture that was subsequently established on the site represented:

1. “... a bridgehead of viritane settlement [that had been] ... entrusted to the military protection of the new Latin colony of Spoletium [in 241 BC] ....”
   

If so, one wonders why , despite its strategic location, it had apparently done little to oppose Hannibal in 217 BC: as discussed in the section “Second Punic War” and marked on the map above, his march from Trasimene would have taken him past Perusia and then:

1. ✴along Fontaine’s road 15, below Asisium and Hispellum;
   

2. ✴across the Tinia (using a bridge at P2 that would surely have replaced the ancient ford by this time);
   

3. ✴along the cardo maximus of Camerieri’s putative prefecture; and
   

4. ✴along the eastern branch of Via Flaminia to Spoletium (if Livy’s account is accepted). 
   

It is certainly dangerous to argue from silence, particularly in the present context: as discussed above, our surviving sources give neither a complete nor a consistent account of these events.  However, there is certainly no surviving evidence to suggest that a settlement on the site of modern Foligno that was under the military protection of Spoletium significantly impeded Hannibal’s advance.  Perhaps this putative settlement did not (or did not yet) exist at this time?

As noted above, Paolo Camerieri (2015, at pp. 85-7) based his hypothesis of the dating  of the castrum on the orientation of the deCumaenus maximus.  He asked himself why:

1. “... the deCumaenus maximus, the most important street of a Roman city, coincided [in the case of Fulginia] with neither branch of Via Flaminia ...?” (my translation and my bold italics).
   

Instead, he pointed out that it coincided with his ‘proto-Flaminia’, which meant, in his view, that the castrum must have been built before 241 BC.  In my view, this chain of reasoning overlooks the fact that, on Camerieri’s model, the original street plan was that of a Roman castrum that only subsequently became a Roman city.  Its location and orientation would therefore have been determined by the strategic imperative of controlling the crossing of the Tinia.  If so, then:

1. ✴while its deCumaenus maximus (Camerieri’s ‘proto Flaminia’) would have determined its distance from the river;
   

2. ✴its precise location would have been determined by the strategic need to locate its via principalis (later the putative cardo maximus of Fulginia) along the road across the river.
   

The aspect ratio of the rectangular castrum would have been decided:

1. ✴not by the relative importance (in either logistical or strategic terms) of  these two roads; but
   

2. ✴by the need to defend as much as possible of its boundary by the river (rather than by moats fed from the river).
   

In other words, a castrum of this topography would have made strategic sense whether or not the longer of its two main axial roads was also its most important thoroughfare.  It follows that 241 BC does not necessarily provide a terminus ante quem for the construction of the castrum.  Indeed, its strategic value would have increased after 220 BC, since its via principalis would than have offered rapid access to both branches of Via Flaminia.

Thus, in my view, if the street plan of modern Foligno does indeed betray the existence of a Roman castrum, then this castrum was more probably built at some time after 217 BC, when Hannibal’s march on Spoletium would have demonstrated the strategic weakness associated with the recent construction of Via Flaminia: it is at least possible that the Romans responded to Hannibal’s wake-up call by building a permanently garrisoned camp here, from which soldiers could be quickly dispatch along the via principalis to defend either branch of the new road.  The realisation that military fortifications were needed so close to Rome probably came as something of a shock.  However, we might detect a similar reaction at nearby Asisium: Guy Bradley (referenced below, at p. 167) observed that the new circuit of walls there, which has been dated roughly to the middle of the 3rd century BC:

1. “... followed a course determined in places by defensive considerations rather than by the extent of habitable space.  The scale of the wall and the antiquity of its conception has a great significance for this allied town.  The immediate motive for the construction of the fortification may have been the renewed sense of danger emphasised by the invasion of Hannibal, who probably passed near Asisium after the battle of Trasimene.”
   

If we bring forward the date of construction of the putative castrum to ca. 217 BC, then we might align:

1. ✴the hypothesis of Giuliana Galli and Paolo Camerieri, that this castrum gave rise to the subsequent establishment of a prefecture that administered the affairs of viritane settlers; and
   

2. ✴the hypothesis of Simone Sisani, that establishment of this prefecture was associated with the viritane settlement of veterans of the Second Punic War at Fulginia.
   

Virtane Settlement in the Valle Umbra

As noted above, Simone Sisani (referenced below, 2007, at p. 218) argued that the establishment of the prefecture of Fulginia:

1. “... can be closely associated with the viritane settlement in 200-199 BC of veterans of the war against Hannibal.  This is confirmed by the assignation of Fulginia to the Cornelia, ... which was probably [the tribe] of the instigator of this settlement, P. Cornelius Scipio Africanus” (my translation).
   

As Lily Ross Taylor (referenced below, at p. 307) pointed out:

1. “[While] there is no evidence for Scipio’s tribe, ... the Cornelia was the tribe of his gens ...”
   

Viritane Settlement of Scipio Africanus in the Valle Umbra ?

In the following passage, Paul Erdkamp (referenced below, at pp. 112-3) summarised two records from Livy that described the viritane settlement of veterans of Scipio Africanus in Italy after the Second Punic War:

1. “Livy tells us that:
   

2. ✴In 201 BC [‘History of Rome’, 31: 4: 2] the Senate decided that the urban praetor should appoint a commission to supervise the measuring and division of public land in Samnium and Apulia on behalf of [those veterans of Scipio who had served in Spain and Africa]. 
   

3. ✴[In a later record for 200 BC, ‘History of Rome’, 31: 49: 5], he adds that each veteran was offered 2 iugera for each year that he had served. ... some 40,000 veterans were [potentially] involved.  However, apparently, not all of them accepted the offer, since some of Scipio’s veterans signed up for the Second Macedonian War (200-197 BC). 
   

4. The point is that Roman veterans were settled on public land [on this occasion].  That they were not settled in colonies does not matter: at the end of the Hannibalic War the Senate probably saw no reason to found new military strongholds in Samnium and Apulia.”
   

Edward Salmon (referenced below. at p. 97) described the subsequent establishment of eight relatively small maritime colonies of Roman citizens in southern Italy after the Second Macedonian War: Volternum, Liternum, Puteoli, Salernum, Buxentum, Sipontum, Tempsa and Croto.  The first five had been planned in 197 BC and all eight were  established in 194 BC, the year of Scipio Africanus’ second consulship (see Livy: ‘History of Rome’, 32: 29: 3 for 197 BC and ‘History of Rome’, 34: 45: 1-5 for 194 BC).  Salmon observed that:

1. “... it may be that this colonisation programme was a favourite project of [Scipio Africanus]. It is to be noted that, when he later fell out of favour, he retired to one of these colonies , ... Liternum ...”.
   

From these accounts, we can reasonably assume that Scipio did indeed take an active interest in the settlement of his veterans, and that this extended into the 190s BC.  

Simone Sisani (referenced below, 2007, at p. 218) pointed out that, in 199 BC, when Scipio Africanus held the post of princeps senatus, the praetorship of Caius Sergius Plautus was extended into the following year:

1. “... so that he might superintend the distribution of land to the soldiers who had served for many years in Spain, Sicily, and Sardinia ...” (‘History of Rome’, 32: 1: 6).
   

He reasonably suggested that Scipio Africanus had probably arranged for Sergius’ term of office to be prorogued in order facilitate the settlement of his own veterans.  David Gargola (referenced below, at p. 104) assumed that Livy’s three records of 201, 200 and 199 BC:

1. “... probably record the initial passage of a programme [of veteran settlement] and two later modifications to the project.”
   

This programme, as amended, might be have extended beyond Samnium and Apulia, although no other territories are identified.

Thus, there is no documentary evidence for Sisani’s hypothesis that Scipio’s programme  extended into Umbria.  He relied on circumstantial evidence:

1. ✴Fulginia became a prefecture at some time in the period 220-140 BC; and
   

2. ✴at least by the 1st century AD, it was assigned to the Cornelia, which was (as noted above) the tribe of Scipio’s family.
   

If one assumes (as many scholars do) that the tribal assignation coincided with the establishment of the prefecture, then the possibility that both events were connected in some way with the viritane settlement of Scipian veterans at Fulginia in ca. 200 BC emerges. Sisani further suggested (at p. 219) that:

1. “... the presence of settlers in the territory of [nearby] Mevania who were assigned to the Aemilia tribe can be ascribed to the same initiative.  The ‘Scipian’ character of this tribe ... is evidenced by Scipio’s family ties to the gens Aemilia ... , [which were] established by his marriage to Aemilia Tertia, the daughter of Lucius Aemilius Paullus [before 215 BC]” (my translation).
   

There is circumstantial evidence that, on occasion, Scipio arranged for new tribal allocations that were to his political advantage.  For example, according to Lily Ross Taylor (referenced below, at pp. 92-3):

1. ‘Scipio’s veterans of the Spanish and African campaigns received grants from the ager publicus in Samnium and Apulia in 200 BC. ... [The tribes to which the resettled veterans were reassigned are unknown but, whatever they were] voters from the [two newly-enfranchised] regions would have added to the  strength of Scipio in the comitia.”
   

She then described another example that is directly relevant to Sisani’s hypothesis:

1. “Scipio’s influence may also account for the assignment by a tribunical law of 188 BC of: Fundi and Formiae to the Aemilia; and Arpinum to the Cornelia. ... [The usual procedure would have been to assign these newly-enfranchised communities to neighbouring tribes, in this case, the Oufentina and Terentina, where they] would have had much less influence than they acquired when they were put into old rural tribes near Rome.  The assignment of these three peoples to the Aemelia and the Cornelia ... [in Ross Taylor’s opinion] represented an attempt of Scipio Africanus to obtain control of tribal votes.”
   

However, once again the evidence is purely circumstantial: as Rachel Feig Vishnia (referenced below, at p. 156) pointed out, it relies (inter alia) on:

1. “... the unattested assumption that, originally, all Cornelii  and all Aemilii had belonged to the tribes that bear their names [and the conjecture that these  tribes] were under the sway of Scipio Africanus.”
   

Furthermore, she pointed out that:

1. “... if the Aemilia and Cornelia tribes were indeed already committed to Scipio, it would have been politically more astute to distribute new voters among other tribes whose support was presumably less reliable.”
   

Perhaps more fundamentally, nothing in surviving documents links Scipio to the tribunical law of 188 BC. 

If this is accepted, then we still have to consider why, in contrast to any of the other four cities in the list above, Fulginia lost its nominal autonomy and was reconstituted as a prefecture before the Social War.  In this context, we need to look in more detail at Simone Sisani’s hypothesis that the prefecture of Fulginia was established in association with the settlement of veterans in the early 2nd century BC, after the end Second Punic War.

In particular, since veterans of Scipio seem to have been settled at both Fulginia and Mevania in ca. 199 BC, why did Fulginia become a prefecture at this point while Mevania apparently retained its nominal autonomy ? 

To take this further, we might usefully look at the case of what was probably the only other prefecture that was established in Umbria before the Social War: Interamna Nahars (Terni).  Simone Sisani (referenced below, 2007, at p. 146) suggested  that:

1. “... it is likely that [this urban] centre was born as a praefectura in coincidence with viritane settlement in the 3rd century BC” (my translation and my bold italics).
   

More specifically, he asserted (at p. 214), that:

1. “... the first viritane deductions in Umbria can be dated to the first three decades of the 3rd century BC, in strict rapport with the conquest and colonisation of the Sabine lands by [Manius] Curius Dentatus.  A reflection of this activity seems to be the inclusion of Interamna in the Clustumina [tribe: this was also the assignation] of Sabine Forum Novum [some 30 km to the south], the creation of which is inseparable from the politics of the conquest carried out from 290 BC.  ... it is possible that other contemporary deductions took place at this time in the fertile Conca Ternana, with the settlers assigned to the same tribe as their contemporaries in the adjacent Sabine lands: the putative prefecture of Interamna would have been created at this time” (my translation).
   

He also identified (at p. 147) the reason that Interamna had been established as a prefecture rather than (for example) as continuing as an Umbrian centre but with some of its territory assigned to viritane settlement, the pattern that seems to have applied at Mevania (above):

1. ”The original settlements that are identifiable on the future site of the urban centre of Interamna ...  had all been abandoned in or before the 6th century BC” (my translation).
   

In other words, since the Romans needed an urban settlement in this strategically important location for the purposes of administering the surrounding settlers, they had to create it themselves. 

We therefor have to ask a wider question: why did both Interamna Nahars and Fulginia each lose its autonomy when it received veteran settlers, while Mevania (for example) apparently did not? 

1. ✴In the case of  Interamna Nahars, this was probably because (unlike Mevania) it no longer exited as a substantial autonomous centre at the time of the viritane settlement. 
   

2. ✴Perhaps this was also true of Fulginia:
   

3. •perhaps it had never been a substantial Umbrian centre (in which case ST UM 6 would have recorded the marones of another centre, possibly Mevania); or
   

4. •perhaps it had been largely destroyed by Hannibal’s army in 217 BC, almost a decade before Scipio’s veterans arrived.
   

Legal Status of Fulginia: Summary of My View

Thus, it seems to me that we must envisage two alternative scenarios:

1. ✴If one assumes that the marones of ST UM 6 had held office at Fulginia, then the history of this centre in the 3rd century BC can be tentatively summarised as follows:
   

2. ca. 295 BC - Fulginia became a federated ally of Rome, administered by marones
   

3. (probably in association with more senior uhteres).
   

4. ca. 220 BC - the marones of this nominally autonomous city (the precise location of
   

5. which is unknown) built a fountain on what was presumably a nearby site on the newly-opened eastern branch of Via Flaminia.
   

6. ca. 217 BC - Hannibal’s rampaging soldiers destroyed ‘Umbrian’ Fulginia before
   

7. marching on Spoletium. 
   

8. ✴If, on the other hand, one assumes that the marones of ST UM 6 had held office at another centre (perhaps Mevania), then we know nothing about Fulginia in the 3rd century BC.  However, we might reasonably assume that, if it had existed in proximity to Via Flaminia in 217 BC, it was destroyed by Hannibal’s soldiers before they continued to Spoletium.
   

In my view, Simone Sisani is probably correct in asserting that veterans of Scipio Africanus were settled in the plain between Bevagna and Foligno in ca. 199 BC, some of whom were assigned to the Aemilia and others to the Cornelia:

1. ✴The veterans assigned to the Aemilia were those settled on territory belonging to Mevania.  There is nothing to suggest a change in the legal status of Mevania at this time: the native Mevanates were apparently assigned to the Aemilia only in the enfranchisement that followed the Social War.
   

2. ✴However, the veterans assigned to the Cornelia were, in my view, settled on essentially uninhabited land that had assumed great strategic importance in 220 BC with the construction of Via Flaminia (as Hannibal had demonstrated only three years later).  The settlement of veterans here at the end of the war would have addressed the security situation in this area, and it is likely that a new urban centre called Fulginia was established as a prefecture in order to administer their affairs.