Excavated site of Plestia, near the now-isolated church of Santa Maria di Plestia

Ronald Syme (referenced below, at p. 285) observed that:

1. “The only record of [Plestia] in all ancient literature is in Pliny’s list of Umbrian communities.  But the name survives as ‘Pistia’ [as in Santa Maria di Pistia or di Plestia], and inscriptions confirm the localisation.”
   

The literary reference here is to Pliny the Elder, who placed the Plestini among the communities of the Augustan Sixth Region  (‘Natural History’, 3:19).

Epigraphic Evidence for Municipalisation

Octovirate ?

Two funerary inscriptions that were recorded in the church of Santa Maria di Plestia, both of which are now in the Museo Archeologico di Colfiorito, commemorate octoviri:

1. ✴CIL XI 5621, which probably dates to the early Augustan period, commemorates Titus Liconius, the son of Titus Liconius Serapione and Arnila Secunda, who is recorded as:
   

2. T(ito) Liconio T(iti) f(ilio) Ouf(entina) VIIIvir(o)
   

3. ✴AE 1991, 646, which might be slightly later, commemorates:
   

4. M(arcus) Annio, T(iti) l(iberto)/ VIIIvir(o) ch...
   

Simone Sisani (referenced below, 2007, at p. 143) asserted that these two inscriptions indicate: 

1. “... the original [octoviral] municipal constitution of Plestia, which only subsequently came into line with that of neighbouring municipia with the introduction of the quattuorvirate [as discussed below] ” (my translation).
   

Many scholars take that view: however, I argued on the previous page that these two octoviri probably belonged to a non-magisterial college at Plestia.

Quattuorvirate

This magistracy is recorded at Plestia in a now-lost funerary inscription (CIL XI 5619) that was recorded in the crypt of Santa Maria di Plestia.  It had been erected by Caius Allieius Martialis to commemorate his son, Caius Allieius, who was recorded as:

[C(aio) Alli]eio C(ai) f(ilio) Ouf(entina)/  ae[d(ili?)] IIIIvir(o) quaest(ori)

The cursus here seems to be in the wrong order, but Caius Allieius had apparently held the posts of quattuorvir, aedile and quaestor.  The EDR database (see the CIL link) dates the inscription to the period 50-200 AD. 

Archeological Evidence for Municipalisation

The church of Santa Mari di Plestia stands on the foundations of a public building with a colonnaded front, which was probably the “basilica forense” (basilica of the forum) of the Roman municipium of Plestia.  Maria Romana Picuti (referenced below at p. 50) observed that:

1. “In the absence of extensive excavations, the actual extension of [Plestia] and its urban plan are both unknown: perhaps the inhabited nucleus was not particularly extensive and, as in analogous cases elsewhere in the Apennines, it was made up of only public buildings, while the population continued to live in nearby villages, a legacy of the previous Umbrian period” (my translation).
   

Domus Publica at Plestia?

Excavations on a site opposite the church have brought to light a large domus (ca. 30 BC) with mosaic floors and frescoed walls (which was probably on the opposite side of the forum).   Although this complex is essentially configured as a private home with an entrance hall and other rooms around two colonnaded courtyards, its unusually large size (ca. 2200 square meters) suggests that it more probably accommodated the municipal authorities.  Simone Sisani (referenced below, 2014, at pp. 195-6) has discussed this building in the context of the similar putative domus publicae that have been excavated in Regio VI:

1. ✴at Suasa, in the ager Gallicus; and
   

2. ✴at Tadinum, on a site that has been excavated south of Gualdo Tadino in Umbria.
   

He characterised (at p. 195) all three urban centres as:

1. “... cities without [private] houses, at least from the middle of the municipal period: ...[each of which] evidently functioned [as the administrative centre] of a population that was thinly spread across its territory” (my translation).
   

He suggested (at p. 204) that:

1. “It is no coincidence that the period from Caesar to Augustus [49-27 BC], which  saw a crucial phase of development of all these domus, was also the era of the municipalisation of all three centres ... :
   

2. •The late municipalisation of Tadinum and Suasa (not before the Caesarean period) is indicated by the epigraphic evidence for duoviri [at each centre].
   

3. •Plestia was administered by a college of octoviri ... at least until the middle of the 1st century BC.  Its municipalisation with a canonical quattuorviral scheme [as evidenced by CIL XI 5619] is, in this case, dateable to the Augustan period” (my translation).
   

As noted above, there is no surviving evidence for quattuorviri at Plestia before ca. 50 AD at the earliest; the putative domus publica here might well indicate municipalisation, but it tells us nothing about the administrative college at that time.  In respect to Sisani’s assertions in respect of Suasa and Tadinum:

1. ✴As discussed below, there is no surviving evidence that any of the municipia of the ager Gallicus was municipalised before the Augustan period, although this cannot be ruled out.  In the specific case of Suasa, an inscription (CIL XI 6167) records a duovir quinquennalis in the Augustan period.  However, this does not undermine his hypothesis that the putative domus publica there was built for the new municipium.
   

2. ✴However, there is no secure epigraphic evidence for the municipal status of Tadinum at this time, as discussed in the following section.
   

Late Municipalisation of Tadinum ?

The only potential indication of the administrative structure at Tadinum after the Social War is in the form of a funerary inscription (CIL XI 5802) that dates to the period 30BC - 30AD: it commemorates the duovir Cnaeus Disinius, son of Titus, of the Clustumina tribe.  However:

1. ✴ this inscription was found some 20 km north of Tadinum, between Costacciaro and Sigillo; and
   

2. ✴the tribe of Tadinum is otherwise unknown.
   

Thus, there is room for debate about whether Disinius served as duovir of Tadinum.

1. ✴Simone Sisani (referenced below, 2007, at p. 207) was in no doubt: he observed that the find spot was:
   

2. “... on the probable boundary between the territories of the municipia of Iguvium [Gubbio] and Tadinum. ... [Some scholars attribute it to] Suillium [which is listed by Pliny the Elder among the Umbrian municipia and,] ... normally identified as modern Sigillo ... It is true that Sigillo is the closest location to the find spot, but its identification as [Suillum] ... is not secure: thus,Bormann’s suggested attribution [of the inscription to the corpus of] the municipium of Tadinum ... still seems to be the best solution, despite the uncertainty.  This hypothesis is confirmed by the mention of the duovirate in the inscription, which allows us to exclude it from the corpus of Iguvium (which was administered by quattuorviri) and, at the same time, provides an indication of the [otherwise unknown] administrative structure of the municipium of Tadinum.  However, the peripheral provenance of the inscription suggests the need for caution regarding the mention of the [Clustumina] tribe, which might suggest [that Disinius came from Iguvium]” (my translation). 
   

3. ✴However, Maria Carla Spadoni (in L. Rosi Bonci and M. C. Spadoni, referenced below, at pp. 229-30, entry 3) suggested that CIL XI 5802 more probably related to Arna, notwithstanding the fact that this centre was some 45 km to the southwest of the find spot:
   

4. “The coexistence [in this inscription] of:
   

5. •the duovirate;
   

6. •the Clustumina tribe; and
   

7. •[a family name] attested in Perugia in CIL XI 2052, [which records a member of the gens Disinia and which], according to Vermiglioli, was found ‘in the Perugian countryside);
   

8. certainly makes its attribution to Arna [which had belonged to Perusia before the Perusine War] more probable” (my translation).
   

Simone Sisani (referenced below, 2007, at p. 268) relied only on CIL XI 5802 when he placed Tadinum in category of municipia administered by duoviri (see note 119).  He acknowledged (at p. 269) that, on this model, it is:

1. “... possible that Tadinum represents the only ex-federated [Umbrian] community that became a municipium administered by duoviri ...” (my translation).
   

I think that this is too much weight to place on a single inscription of such uncertain provenance: in truth, we have no secure evidence for:

1. ✴the date of the municipalisation of Tadinum; or
   

2. ✴its subsequent administrative structure.
   

In my view, the late date of the putative domus publica at Tadinum is not, on its own, sufficient proof for an anomalous late municipalisation of Tadinum itself.  

Municipalisation of Plestia: My Preliminary Conclusions

All we know for certain is that, by some point in the period ca. 50-200 AD, Plestia was a municipium administered by quattuorviri.  In most cases, this would indicate municipalisation soon after the Social War.  However, in my view, we cannot rule out the possibility that the excavated structure opposite Santa Maria di Plestia was a domus publica, and that its construction in ca. 30 BC indicates the approximate date of the municipalisation of Plestia.  If so, this municipalisation would have been associated with the reorganisation of Italy after the victory of Octavian at Actium in 31 BC.

If we discount the evidence for an octoviral administration at Plestia (as I believe we should), then, on this model, there would be two possible scenarios:

1. ✴that it was municipalised with duoviri in ca. 30 BC (which, as we shall see,  was usual at this time) and subsequently reconstituted as a quattuorvirate; or
   

2. ✴it was municipalised with quattuorviri in ca. 30 BC.
   

In order to explore these scenarios further, we need to look at the circumstantial evidence for Augustan municipalisation at other nearby centres, albeit that the surviving evidence is fragmentary.

Putative Augustan Municipalisation of Plestia 

Historical Context

Before embarking on what I am afraid is a long excursus, I should summarise the historical context in which Plestia might have been municipalised.

Land Confiscation for Triumviral Colonies after Philippi (42 BC)

Plestia and the Perusine War (41-40 BC)

Asterisk = Places destroyed in the war (Perusia; Sentinum; Nursia; Sutrium; probably Veii; possibly Clusium

Blue dots = places where Lucius’ allies took refuge (Fulginia; Spoletium)

Red dots = triumviral colonies (Hispellum; Pisaurum; Ancona; Firmum; probably Hadria; probably Asculum)

Pink dots = centres that were centuriated in the triumviral period (Libri Coloniarum)

Adapted from the Digital Atlas of the Roman Empire 

In a momentous meeting at Bononia (Bologna) in October 43 BC, Octavian (the adopted son of Julius Caesar) agreed with his former enemies, Mark Antony and Lepidus, on the formation of a triumvirate (dictatorship of three), an allegedly temporary arrangement ahead of the expected war against the last of Caesar’s assassins (principally Cassius and Brutus).  Appian recorded that:

1. “To encourage the army with the expectation of booty, [the triumvirs] promised [the soldiers] ... 18 cities of Italy as colonies ... that were to be divided among them ..., just as though they had been captured from an enemy in war” (‘Civil Wars’, 4:3).
   

Cassius and Brutus were duly defeated at Philippi in 42 BC, after which, as Josiah Osgood (referenced below, at p. 159) observed:

1. “[Mark] Antony remained to settle affairs in the east, while Octavian hurried to a terrified Italy to distribute the land promised to Caesar’s veterans.”
   

Appian named only 7 of these 18 designated cities, of which Ariminum (Rimini, some 150 km to the north) was the closest to Plestia.  Laurence Keppie, referenced below, 1983, see his proposed list at p.63) deduced the probable identities of the other eleven selected cities, 3-5 of which were in the vicinity of Plestia: Hispellum; Ancona; Firmum; Hadria ?; and Asculum ? (all marked on the map above).

Pliny the Elder, who relied on Augustan sources, recorded Hispellum as a colony in his account of the Augustan Sixth Region (‘Natural History’, 3:19).  However, his account of  the Augustan Fifth Region is less helpful.  His list included:

1. “... the colony of Adria is, at a distance of six miles from the sea.  Tervium, at which the Prætutian district ends and that of Picenum begins; the town of  ... Castellum Firmanorum and, above it, the colony of Asculum, the most illustrious in Picenum; ... Upon the coast we have ... [the now-unidentified] Numana, founded by the Siculi, and Ancona, a colony founded by the same people, on the Promontory of Cumerus ... In the interior are ... the Falarienses, .... ” (‘Natural History’, 3:18).
   

There are two difficulties with this list:

1. ✴Ancona is listed as a colony founded in the ancient past by the ‘Siculi’, a Greek tribe found on Sicily, which is broadly correct but which does not mean that it was subsequently re-colonised in the triumviral period.  However, as we shall see, there is documentary evidence that this was the case.
   

2. ✴It lists the towns of Castellum Firmanorum and Falerio (see below), but makes no mention at all of nearby Firmum.  However, as we shall see, there is epigraphic evidence that a colony was founded at Firmum in the late 1st century BC, and (less securely) that this foundation took place after Philippi.
   

I discuss these five colonies in turn below.

Hispellum (Spello) 

Laurence Keppie (referenced below, 1983, at pp. 178-9) deduced that the colony at Hispellum was founded after Philippi on the basis of evidence from the poetry of Propertius (ca. 50-15 BC), who came from nearby Asisium (Assisi).  In a striking autobiographical passage, Propertius lamented:

1. “Ancient Umbria gave birth to [me] ..., where misty Mevania wets the open plain, and  ... the wall towers from the summit of climbing Asisium ... Not of an age to gather them, [I] gathered [my] father’s bones and [was] forced to find a meaner home, since ... the merciless measuring-rod [of the Roman land surveyors] stole [our] wealth of land”, (‘Elegies’ 4: 1a). 
   

Keppie commented (at p. 178) that this passage:

1. “... may be linked to two other [of Propertius’ elegies, 1: 21-2, which lamented] the death of at least one of [his relatives] in the Perusine War of 41 BC [discussed below].  The Propertii of Asisium, recently deprived of a substantial part of their property, ... are easily envisaged as supporters of [Octavian’s enemy,] Lucius Antonius, rallying to his aid in nearby Perusia.”
   

Keppie concluded (at p. 179) that:

1. “... the misfortunes of the Propertii seem to be associated with [the confiscations that made way for] the foundation of the colony [at Hispellum], an event that may [therefore] be confidently placed in 41 BC.”
   

In other words, Hispellum was also probably founded immediately  after Philippi, and opposition to the confiscation of nearby land for allotment to the veterans who were to be enrolled there might well have been an important factor  in determining the course of the so-called Perusine War.

Ancona

According to Appian, the colony at Ancona was founded for veterans of:

1. “...two legions ... that had served under [Julius] Caesar and under [Mark] Antony.  On hearing of the ... preparations for war [between Octavian and Lucius Antonius, the brother of Mark Antony, in 41 BC ] and being moved by friendship for each of them, [the colonists] sent ambassadors to Rome to beseech them both [unsuccessfully, as it turns out] to come to an agreement ...”, (‘Civil Wars’, 5: 23: 1).
   

Thus, the date of the foundation of this colony can be securely placed in the narrow window between Philippi and the Perusine War (discussed below).  Laurence Keppie (referenced below, 1983, at p. 100) observed that: 

1. “... even allowing for some [possible] expropriation of land from nearby Aesis and Auximum, the task of accommodating [the veterans of two legions] on flat land [near Ancona] must have been difficult.”
   

I wonder whether this at east partially accounts for the large number of nearby centres (marked with pink dots on the map above) that are listed in the Libri Coloniarum as having experienced land division in the triumviral period.  Even allowing for the short-comings of this source (discussed below), the concentration of these indications is highly suggestive.  However, even if we accept this hypothesis, it is not possible to determine whether:

1. ✴the implied land confiscations pre-dated the Perusine War  and thus shaped its course; or
   

2. ✴whether they followed, and were perhaps a consequence of, the rebellion at Sentinum (discussed below).  
   

The evidence from Hispellum (above) perhaps suggests the former.

Firmum (Fermo)

As noted above, Firmum is not mentioned by Pliny the Elder in his account of Regio V.  Nevertheless, it certainly existed in the Augustan period: it had been founded as a Latin colony in 264 BC and would have been fully enfranchised after the Social War as a municpium with quattuorviri.  However,

1. ✴an inscription (CIL IX 0540) from the period 12BC - 14AD described Augustus as  ‘parens coloniae’ (see Laurence Keppie (referenced below, 1983, p. 181 and note 110 for its authenticity); and
   

2. ✴other surviving inscriptions (for example, CIL IX 5363 and 5365, both from 65-80 AD) document it as a duoviral colony assigned to the Velina.
   

Laurence Keppie (referenced below, at p. 182) referred to a funerary inscription (CIL IX 5527) from Monte San Pietrangeli, (some 15 km northwest of Fermo), which dated to the late 1st century BC and which commemorated Caius Vettius Tuscus, a veteran of legio IIII Macedonica: Keppie argued that he had probably been discharged and settled here after Philippi. This seems to be confirmed by an entry in the ‘Liber Colonarium’:

1. “The land of Firmum Picenum was allocated in centurae of 200 iugera, with limites established by triumvirs”, (translated into English by Brian Campbell, referenced below, at p. 177).
   

In his note on this passage (note 59, at p. 411) Campbell agreed with Keppie that:

1. “A colony was established here with veterans of legio IV Macedonica, probably after Philippi.” 
   

An inscription (CIL IX 5420) on a now-lost bronze tablet from Falerio (Falerone, some 30 km east of Fermo along the valley of the Tenna), reproduced the contents of a rescript (82 AD) that had been issued by the Emperor Domitian, in which he confirmed the authority of Falerio to possess some parcels of land designated as ‘subseciva’ to which Firmum laid claim  A passage in this rescript makes it clear that the claim by Firmum dated back to the time of Augustus:  

1. “The long duration of this complaint, which the people of Firmum try to lodge again, after so many years, against the inhabitants of Falerio, upsets me very much.  This is not only because fewer years are enough for the security of those who possess such land, but also because of a letter of the divine Augustus, a sovereign who paid a very kind attention to the soldiers of his Fourth Legion, in which he instructed them[i.e the colonists at Firmum] to reckon and to sell all the subseceva that they owned.  I am sure that they carried out his beneficial instructions: therefore, I confirm the rights of those who possess such land”, (translation by Mauro De Nardis, referenced below, at p. 22).
   

In other words, it seems that land at Falerio had been assigned to the new colony at Firmum, but that Augustus had subsequently directed that those parcels of it that remained unoccupied (subseceva) should be sold.  In his rescript, Domitian assumed that this was how at least some of this land had ended up in the ownership of people from Falerio, and he confirmed their right to continue in possession of it.  Laurence Keppie (referenced below, 1983, at p. 183) suggested that he existence of the disputed land was:

1. “... the result of the settlement at Firmum itself, which may have expanded along the valley of the Tenna at the expense of Falerio.”
   

The Liber Coloniarum (see Brian Campbell, referenced below, at pp. 176-7) recorded Falerio  among placesat which the boundaries of divided land were marked:

1. “... in some places by Augustan boundary stones.”
   

which suggests (at least to me) that land might have been purchased at Falerio for the reinforcement after Actium of the putative triumviral colony at Firmum.

Hadria (Atri)

Hadria was a Latin colony that was founded in ca. 290 BC, on land on the border between Picenum and the Sabina that had belonged to the Praetutti before the conquest.  It would have been fully enfranchised and municpalised after the Social War.  However, an inscription (EDR112523) from Monte Giove (some 25 km west of Atri) commemorated Paullus Fabius Maximus, the consul of 10 BC,  as ‘patron(o) coloniae’. 

Laurence Keppie (referenced below. 1983, at pp. 179-80) deduced the likely date of the foundation of this colony from a funerary inscription (EDR114457), 30BC - 50AD) from Mosciano Sant'Angelo (some 30 km north of Atria), which commemorated a man with the cognomen Pius who had seen service in legio XXIX and who belonged to the Maecia.   This tribal assignation is important for this discussion, since Mosciano Sant'Angelo is only 8 km west of Giulianova, the site of Castrum Novum:

1. ✴Castrum Novum was a citizen colony founded in 289 BC.  Its tribal assignation is unclear, since the only two relevant inscriptions, both of which are in the form of funerary inscriptions from the period 50 BC - 30 AD, commemorated men from different tribes:
   

2. •CIL IX  5147 commemorated L(ucius) Agid[ius ---?]/ V[el(ina)]/ Kaesọ [---?];
   

3. •CIL IX  5150 commemorated [- L]artius L(uci) f(ilius)/ [P]ap(iria) Rufus.
   

4. Neither of these inscriptions survives, and they are known only from transcriptions.  Most scholars assume the Papiria (see, for example, Simona Antolini and Silvia Marengo, referenced below, at p. 209), perhaps because the Velina was not established until 241 BC.  Nevertheless, given the fact that the Velina is common in this part of Picenum, while the Papiria  is otherwise effectively absent, it seems to me that it is more likely that the citizen colonists at Castrum Novum in Picenum had remained in their individual tribes until 241 BC, when they were assigned to the newly-established Velina.
   

5. ✴An inscription (RIB 326, ca. 200 AD) from Isca (Caerleon, South Wales) recorded a dedication to the health of Septimius Severus and his son, Caracalla, that was made by Publius Sallienius Thalamus, son of Publius, from Hadria, who belonged to the Maecia. 
   

Keppie observed (at p. 180) that;

1. “Almost certainly, Mosciano lay within the territory of Castrum Novum, but the tribe Maecia indicates a connection by birth or settlement with Hadria. ... We must consider the possibility that [legio XXIX ] was settled at Hadria, and that a part of the [territory of Castrum Novum] passed into its possession.  As this legion belonged to Caesar’s recruitment programme of 49 BC, its members could [have expected discharge] after Philippi.”
   

The ‘Liber Coloniarum’ (see the translation into English by Brian Campbell, referenced below, at p. 177) asserts that the territory of Castrum Novum was allocated under a ‘lex Augustiana’, which suggests that land might have been purchased at Castrum Novum for the reinforcement after Actium of the putative triumviral colony at Hadria.

Asculum (Ascoli Piceno)

Asculum was a leading member of the alliance of federated cities that rebelled against Rome in the so-called Social War.  As noted above, Pliny the Elder designated it as the most illustrious colony in Picenum in the Augustan period. 

Laurence Keppie (referenced below, 1983, at p. 181) deduced the likely date of the foundation of this colony from a passage by Frontinus, in which he noted that land disputes could arise when:

“... the greatest part of [the territory of a municipium] was allocated to a colony in accordance to the founder’s wishes, and when some part of [the walls of the municipium] was included in the allocation of the most distant part of its [i.e. the colony’s] land.  This is said to have occurred in Picenum, when part of the oppidum of Interamnia Praetuttiorum (Teramo) was surrounded by the territory of Asculum”, (‘Land Disputes’, translated into English by Brian Campbell, referenced below, at p. 7).

Keppie  suggested that:

1. “We may reasonable infer from this passage that a considerable portion of the territory of Interamnia Praetuttiorum had been given to Asculum.  Large scale expropriation could suggest a date after Philippi for the [foundation of] the colony”. 
   

Brian Campbell (referenced below, at p. 323, note 18) agreed with Keppie that:

1. “The confiscation recorded by Frontinus seems to have been extensive, since Asculum received a part of Interamnia’s urban area, and this may suggest a date after Philippi.”
   

I wonder whether these confiscations fuelled local opposition to Octavian, as is evidenced by the revolt at Nursia (see below).

Perusine War (41-40 BC)

This war between Octavian and the consul Lucius Antonius (the brother of the Mark Antony) was actually a Roman civil war, which earned its title because Lucius Antonius made his last stand at Perusia.   The allegation that Octavian had engaged in human sacrifice of some of the hapless inhabitants thereafter was widely believed and long-remembered.  Thus, when Seneca the Younger wrote for the young Emperor Nero in ca. 50 AD, he observed that the characteristic clemency of  Octavian/ Augustus had developed:

1. “ ... only after the sea at Actium had been stained with Roman blood [in 31 BC], only after both his own and his enemy’s fleets had been shattered off Sicily [in 36 BC], only after the arae Perusinae [altars of Perugia in 41 BC] and the proscriptions [of 43 BC]” (‘de Clementia’, 1:11; slightly adapted from the translation by Zsuzsanna Várhelyi, referenced below, p. 137).
   

Thus, even after a century or more, the horror of Octavian’s reprisals at Perusia could be invoked in only two words: ‘arae Perusinae’.

However, Perusia was by no means the only centre that was suffered during this short but brutal war.  For example:

1. ✴at least two other centres near Plestia, Sentinum and Nursia, had been destroyed before the fall of Perusia;
   

2. ✴closer to Rome, Sutrium was also attacked by Octavian’s army as it marched on Perusia, and nearby Veii might have suffered a similar fate;
   

3. ✴during the  months in 41-40 BC during which Perusia was under siege, at least two other centres nearer to Plestia, Spoletium and Fulginia, were blockaded; and
   

4. ✴the history at Clusium in this period closely resembles that of Perusia (as discussed below), which suggests (at least to me) that it was also a  casualty of the war.
   

These centres are marked on the map, and  I discuss them in turn in the sections below. 

Sentinum (Sassoferrato) and Nursia (Norcia)

According to Cassius Dio:

1. ✴At the start of hostilities in 41 BC:
   

2. “[Octavian] made an expedition against Nursia ... and routed the Sabines and the [Lucian] garrison encamped before it, but was repulsed from the city by [Lucius’ general] Tisienus Gallus”, (‘Roman History’, 48: 13: 2-6).
   

3. ✴Octavian then laid siege to Sentinum, which Gaius Furnius held for Lucius Antonius.   However, when Octavian heard that Lucius himself had taken Rome, he marched in that direction, leaving Salvidienus Rufus to keep watch on Sentinum:
   

4. “As soon as [Octavian] had left [for Rome], Furnius ... issued forth and pursued him a long distance.  [Salvidienus] unexpectedly attacked the citizens inside and, capturing the town, plundered and burned it.  The inhabitants of Nursia [then] came to terms [with Octavian] without having suffered any ill treatment.  However, ...  [when] they inscribed on [the tombs of the men who had fallen during the rebellion] that they had died contending for their liberty, [the survivors] were punished by an enormous fine, so that they abandoned their city and, at the same time, all their territory”, (‘Roman History’, 48: 13: 2-6).
   

Veii (Veio) and Sutrium (Sutri)

When he heard of Octavian’s approach, Lucius left Rome, marching north in an attempt to meet up with two of Mark Antony’s generals, Asinius Pollio and Ventidius Bassus, who were advancing (possibly without Mark Antony’s explicit assent) into Italy from their bases in Gaul.  According to Appian:

1. “[Marcus] Agrippa, who was the closest friend of Octavian, fearing lest Salvidienus should be surrounded [at Sentinum ?], seized Sutrium, a stronghold very useful to Lucius, expecting that he would turn Lucius from Salvidienus [and draw him into a trap] ... When Lucius perceived this design, he  [took fright and] turned aside to Perusia, a strongly fortified city, and [waited] there for Ventidius”, (‘Civil Wars’, 5: 31).
   

Barri Jones (referenced below, at pp. 775-6) suggested that Agrippa’s seizure of Sutrium had been preceded by an attack on Veii , an event that is known only from an enigmatic entry in the Liber Coloniarum.  He pointed out that Appian’s account:

1. “... leaves little doubt that [Agrippa] was moving up Via Cassia [towards Perusia]: Veii is, of course, the previous town on [this road] as one travels northwards from Rome.”
   

Spoletium (Spoleto) and Fulginia (Foligno)

According to Appian, when Asinius and Ventidius became aware of the strength of the army besieging Perusia, they retreated: Asinius to Ravenna; and Ventidius to Ariminum (Rimini).  Another of Lucius’ supporters, Lucius Munatius Plancus, who was approaching from the south, took refuge in Spoletium:

1. “Octavian stationed a force in front of each, to prevent them from forming a junction, and returned to Perusia, where he speedily strengthened [the siege]”, (‘Civil Wars’, 5:33).
   

Appian also described how Fulginia was soon caught up in the war:

1. “Ventidius and his officers, ashamed to look on while Lucius was starving [at Perusia, finally] moved to his support, intending to overpower [the besieging army.  Agrippa and Salvidienus  went to meet them with still larger forces.  Fearing lest they should be surrounded, [Ventidius and his men] diverted to the stronghold of [Fulginia], 160 stades from Perusia.  [It is possible that Asinus and/or Plancus joined him there.]  Agrippa besieged them, and they lit many fires as signals to Lucius.  Ventidius and Asinius were of the opinion that they should still go forward and fight, but Plancus [warned against the plan]: the opinion of Plancus prevailed”, (‘Civil Wars’, 5:35).
   

We know nothing of the subsequent fate of either Spoletium or Fulginia when Lucius’ erstwhile allies withdrew. leaving Perusia to its fate.

Perusia  (Perugia) and Clusium (Chiusi)

Thus the hopes of the besieged army at Perusia evaporated and it duly surrendered.  Octavian allowed both Lucius and his men to withdraw but, according to Cassius Dio:

1. “Of the people of Perusia and the others who were captured there, the majority lost their lives, and the city itself, except the temple of Vulcan and the statue of Juno, was entirely destroyed by fire.  This statue, which was preserved by some chance, was brought to Rome ... and it secured for [Perusia] the privilege of being peopled again by any who desired to settle there, though they did not acquire anything of its territory beyond the first mile” (‘Roman History’, 48:14).
   

As discussed below, the erstwhile territory of Perusia saw the settlement of veterans after Octavian’s victory at Actium (31 BC), and the old quattuorviral municipium there was reconstituted with duoviri shortly after the turn of the century.  Similar developments seem to have occurred at Clusium, which suggests (at least to me) that it had been yet another casualty of the Perusine War.

Picenum 

According to Appian, after the fall of Perusia:

1. “... Asinius, Plancus, Ventidius [and their respective armies]  ... retired to the coast by various routes ...”, (‘Civil Wars’, 5:50).
   

It seems that some of the retreating legions retreated to the stretch of the Adriatic coast in Picenum: according to Appian, Octavian’s generals:

1. “... followed them, offering terms of peace ... [However,] only two legions, which belonged to Plancus and which were intercepted at Cameria, were persuaded by Agrippa to desert to him.  ... Plancus [himself] abandoned the remains of his army through cowardice, and these soldiers chose Ventidius as their commander”, (‘Civil Wars’, 5:50).
   

There had been an ancient city called ‘Cameria’ or Camerium, but Pliny the Elder recorded that it was one of the: 

1. “... 53 peoples of ancient Latium [that] have passed away without leaving any traces of their existence”, (‘Natural History’, 3: 9).
   

Thus, Ronald Syme (referenced below, at p. 292) reasonably assumed that the two legions that defected from Plancus to Agrippa did so at Camerinum (Camerino), which they could have easily reached (via Plestia) from either Spoletium or Fulginia. 

This is all we know about the movements of Mark Antony’s generals at this time.  Syme observed that:

1. “Asinus certainly went back to Cisalpine Gaul, no doubt taking Via Flaminia.  The movements of Ventidius are obscure ... It may be conjectured that his base lay in Picenum, the district of his origin, and he probably retired there from [Fulginia], [perhaps] crossing the Pass of Colfiorito by way of Plestia and Camerinum: [however,], if that road was in use by [Plancus and/or his legions], Ventidius may have taken one or other of the routes branching  off Via Flaminia further northwards.”
   

That, of course, is one possibility.  However, all we know from the surviving sources is that Ventidius still had his own and most of Plancus’ army under his command, and that his colleague Asinius had persuaded Ahenobarbus to shift his allegiance from Octavian to Mark Antony.  Appian recorded that:

1. “Both Asinius and Ventidius wrote of these facts to [Mark] Antony, and they prepared landing-places, in expectation of his early arrival, and stores of provisions throughout Italy”, (‘Civil Wars’, 5:50).
   

Some of these potential landing-places could have been on the Adriatic coast of Picenum but, again,, this is only speculation.  Furthermore, we have no knowledge of how much time passed before Mark Antony’s generals realised that his expected invasion would not materialise: he and Octavian made peace at Brundisium in 40 BC, a peace cemented, albeit temporarily, by Mark Antony’s marriage to Octavian’s sister, Octavia.

Land Division at Non-Colonial Centres in the Triumviral Period (43-31 BC)

This is the first section on this page that relies heavily on a particularly difficult source: the  so-called Libri Coloniarum.  Saskia Roselaar (referenced below) began her paper with an excellent description of  these two overlapping versions of a ‘Book of Colonies’, which have come down to us as part of the the corpus of the Roman Land Surveyors:

1. “[The Liber Coloniarum] consists of a list of cities in Roman Italy, and describes, among other matters, whether they were established as colonies and which system of land measurement was used in each of them.  Two editions of the work have come down to us, the Liber Coloniarum I and II. The second is mainly a shorter version of the first, but also provides some new information.  The historical value of [this work] has been heavily debated.  It was most likely based on a survey made under Augustus; later additions concern the period up until Commodus, the last emperor mentioned in the book.  However, the surviving text of the Liber Coloniarum I most likely dates from the early 4th century AD, while, later in this century, some parts of [it]  were rearranged into the Liber Coloniarum II.  The compilation made in the 4th century was based on several divergent manuscripts of the earlier version, which the compiler tried to combine into a single edition. However, many mistakes which had crept into the text remained uncorrected.”
   

Brian Campbell (referenced below) published an edited text of the surviving manuscripts, alongside a translation into English and notes on the text.  He warned that this information can be misleading and, if we are to use it, for example, to identify colonial status at particular centres:

1. “...we need [the support of] specific literary references, confirmed by inscriptions or by similar evidence.  The remains of [surviving] field systems, if they can be securely identified, can also help.”
   

Laurence Keppie (referenced below, 1983, at pp. 8-12) made similar comments, but noted (at p. 11) that:

1. “Many of the entries, particularly among the civitates Campaniae, offer precise details about the author of a settlement or its legal framework, for example:
   

2. ✴lege Iulia (by which Caesarian settlement, either in 59-8 or 47-4 BC, seems to be implied);
   

3. ✴lege triumvirale (the post-Philippi settlements); or
   

4. ✴lege Augustea (which, in this context , probably means settlement from 30 BC onwards).
   

5. This information, where we can check, is often correct. On the other hand:
   

6. ✴[actual] post-Philippi settlements can be classed as Augustan and vice versa; and
   

7. ✴Caesar is [sometimes] credited with colonies that we might reasonably regard as post-Philippi or post-Actium.”
   

In short, this is a valuable source of information, but it needs to be used with care.

With this warning in mind, I would like to point out that the Libri Coloniarum record that the territories of a number of centres to the north and northwest of Plestia (marked with pink dots in the map above)  witnessed land division in the triumviral period.

Plestia during the Perusine War

In summary, it is possible that life at Plestia was disrupted by:

1. ✴the rebellions at Nursia and Sentinum in 41 BC ;
   

2. ✴the troop movements during the subsequent siege of Perusia; and
   

3. ✴the events that attended the eventual withdrawal of Lucius Antonius and of  his allies, Asinus, Ventidius and Plancus.
   

However, the extent of any permanent effect at Plestia is unknown: it is however clear that it now found itself surrounded by perhaps five new military colonies.

Veteran Settlement and Constitutional Changes after Actium (31 BC)

Enrico Zuddas (referenced below), in the opening abstract of his paper, pointed out that: 

1. “The Perusine War deeply transformed the social and political structures of the surrounding area.”
   

It certainly changed the political alignments in central Italy, but the associated political changes mostly post-dated another waive of veteran settlement after Octavian’s defeat of Mark Antony at Actium in 31 BC, a victory that heralded the definitive end to the series of civil wars that had convulsed the Republic for decades.  Octavian now had complete political control of Italy, a fact that was made explicit when he accepted the name Augustus in 27 BC.

Although the number of veterans to be settled after Actium was much greater than had been the case after Philippi, Octavian/ Augustus now had the wealth of Egypt at his disposal in order to facilitate the process.  Two passage in his biography are illuminating in this context:

1. ✴“[After Actium], I settled more than 300,000 [veterans] in colonies or sent them back into their own municipia, and to all I assigned lands or gave money as a reward for military service”, (‘Res Gestae Divi Augusti’, 1: 3: 3).
   

2. ✴“[In 30 BC], I paid money to the municipia for the lands that I assigned to soldiers ...”, (‘Res Gestae Divi Augusti’, 3: 16: 1).
   

This huge project was at the heart of a programme of political re-organisation that was to characterise the peace and prosperity of newly-imperial Italy.

There does not seem to have been any new colonial foundations 

Once again, Plestia was at the geographical centre of these events. Unfortunately, the surviving documentary, epigraphic and archeological evidence does not allow us to chart its administrative development: the archeological evidence might indicate municipalisation in the Augustan period but all we know for certain is that it was a quattuorviral municipium by ca. 200 AD.  To learn more, we need to look in turn at the administrative changes that took place in the neighbouring territories.

Precedents in Sabine Territory ?

Plestia and the Sabine Region

Adapted from the Digital Atlas of the Roman Empire 

The territory of the Sabines falls into two geographically distinct regions:

1. ✴the upland alta Sabina to the north, which contains Nursia, Reate and Amiternum; and
   

2. ✴the Sabina tiberina in the lowland area towards Rome, which was centred on Cures and renowned in Roman pre-history as the birthplace of two of the early kings of Rome.
   

The Romans conquered this territory in 290 BC and confiscated its territory:

1. ✴Sabina tiberina was fully enfranchised in 268 BC and its citizens were assigned to the Sergia tribe.
   

2. ✴The citizen settlers in the alta Sabina probably retained their original tribal assignations until 241 BC, when a new tribe, the Quirina, was established for them.
   

Scholars often assert that the administrative structure at Plestia developed in parallel with that of its Sabine neighbour.  For example:

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

2. “A peculiar form of magistracy, the octovirate, is found in the imperial age in certain Sabine communities [that share] a common history ... .  [Magisterial] octoviri are attested at [Sabine] Amiternum, Trebula Mutuesca and Nursia ... There were also [magisterial] octoviri at Plestia in Umbria ... Not that this debilitates the view that  ‘magisterial] octoviri are an ethnic or regional phenomenon ... : Plestia is contiguous with the north of Sabine country.”
   

3. ✴Luigi Sensi (referenced below, at p. 457) observed that:
   

4. “Some [scholars] considered [mistakenly in his view and also, for what it is worth, in mine] that the presence of an octovir at Plestia indicated its late municipalisation, in imitation of the situation in the nearby territory of the Sabines and, in particular, of Nursia, with which Plestia might have shared a border. ” (my translation).
   

5. ✴Simone Sisani (referenced below, 2010, at p. 217) asserted that Plestia was administered by magisterial octoviri:
   

6. “... in the same period as all the other attestations of the undifferentiated octovirate [in Sabine territory - see below].  Thus Plestia belongs in the ranks of the ‘late’ praefecturae, which indicates its municipalisation in the Augustan period.  In the imperial period, when it was certainly a municipium, Plestia, like Reate, had a ‘regular’ quattuorviral constitution, generally understood as a direct evolution from the preceding octovirate” (my translation).  
   

7. He suggested (at p. 218) that comparison between Reate and Plestia:
   

8. “... allows us to consider as unexceptional the adoption of of a quattuorviral scheme at the moment of passage from praefectura to municipium, if not later, since the earliest attestation to quattuorviri at Reate [and Plestia] is no earlier that the late 1st century AD.  There is no surviving evidence for the magisterial structure of the praefectura of Reate in the 1st century BC, but we might reasonably hypothesise an octovirate, given the diffusion of this structure in the vicinity.  Cures, in the centre of the Sabine district, might represent an analogous case: a simple vicus in the eyes of Strabo [in the late 1st century BC], it was governed by a regular quattuorviral college, which is first attested [in the surviving evidence] in the middle of the 1st century AD ]” (my translation). 
   

In fact, these assertions that the administrative structure of Plestia developed in line with that of its Sabine neighbours are based on a false premise: that the administrative structures of Nursia, Amiternum, Reate, Trebula Mutuesca and Cures all developed according to a homogeneous  and recognisably ‘Sabine’ scheme.  In fact, it seems from the surviving epigraphic evidence that this was far from the case:

1. ✴Festus identified Nursia and Reate as praefecturae.  There is no supporting epigraphic evidence for this in the case of Nursia (which means that we have no indication of when Nursia ceased to have this status), but surviving inscriptions attest to :
   

2. •a praefectura at Reate in both the Republican and the Augustan periods; and
   

3. •a praefectura at Ameriterna in the Augustan period.
   

4. However, there is no surviving evidence of any kind that either Trebula Mutuesca or Cures was ever constituted as a praefectura, although either or both of them might have been.
   

5. ✴Magisterial octoviri are attested in numerous inscriptions from Nursia, Amiternum and Trebula Mutuesca, albeit that this magistracy assumed different characteristics at each of these locations:
   

6. -Amiternum: Simonetta Segenni (referenced below, 2017, at p. 106) listed nine epigraphically attested ‘octoviri’ (as opposed to ‘VIIIviri’) at Amiternum (her entries 1-9 at p. 108).  She asserted (at p. 106) that this epigraphic usage belonged to the period prior to the early 1st century AD.  Thereafter, and through the 2nd century AD, she recorded:
   

7. ‣nine VIIIviri  (see her entries 10-18 at pp. 108-9); and
   

8. ‣a pair of duoviri (AE 1983, 326, middle of the 1st century AD; see her entry 27 at p. 109).
   

9. Simone Sisani (referenced below, 2012, at pp. 202-4) suggested that this duovirate represented the ultimate form of the administrative college at Amiternum, but Simonetta Segenni (referenced below, 2017, at p. 106) doubted this, on the grounds that at least four inscriptions recording IIIVviri (CIL IX: 4324; 4198; 4199; and 4520) post-dated AE 1983, 326. 
   

10. -Nursia: Simone Sisani (referenced below, 2010, at p. 204) recorded a single VIIIvir in an incription  (AE 1983, 308), that he dated to the middle of the 1st century BC, albeit that (as noted above), Simonetta Segenni dated this epigraphic usage to the period after the middle of the 1st century AD.  Thereafter, this octoviral college began to be differentiated by function.  Thus, Sisani listed (atpp. 205-7:
    

11. ‣a number of VIIIviri duovirali potestate (CIL IX: 4545 and 4547; and AE: 1983, 306; 1989, 218; 1996, 529; 1996, 530; 2000, 386; 2001, 905); and
    

12. ‣two VIIIviri aedilica potestate (CIL IX 4543 and AE 1989, 206).
    

13. These inscriptions apparently span a long period of time, from the early 1st through the 2nd and 3rd centuries.
    

14. -Trebula Mutuseca: Simone Sisani (referenced below, at pp. 196-8) listed the relevant inscriptions, in two groups.  The first group, which he dated to the period ca. 24 BC - 50 AD, recorded octoviri/ VIIIviri ‘nude dicti’.  The inscriptions in the second group, which apparently post-dated the middle of the 1st century AD, evidenced a functional differentiation within the octoviral college, comprising:
    

15. ‣VIIIviri aedilica potestate;
    

16. ‣VIIIviri aerarii;
    

17. ‣VIIIviri fanorum; and
    

18. ‣VIIIviri magistri iuvenum.
    

19. Sisani  therefore asserted (at p. 198) thats, from ca. 50 AD,  the octoviral college at Trebula Mutuseca comprised a pair of magistrates from each of these four constituent colleges, with the two VIIIviri aedilica potestate at its head.
    

20. ✴However, there is no surviving evidence for octoviri of any kind at either Reate or Cures.
    

There is no scholarly consensus for the date of the municipalisation of any of these centres.  For example:

1. ✴For Simone Sisani (referenced below, 2012: see, for example, pp. 220-15), they all adopted an octoviral administration after the Social War, but remained constituted as praefecturae (i.e. they received Roman prefects) until the late 1st century BC: at this point they were municipalised with octoviri and began to appoint local praefecti iure dicundo who took over the functions of the pre-municipal Roman prefects.  These octoviral colleges developed in various ways, as discussed above.
   

2. ✴For Simonetta Segenni (referenced below, 2017, at p. 104 and note 11), the Sabine praefecturae  were all municipalised soon after the Social War, at which point, they ceased to receive prefects from Rome, albeit that they retained the title of praefecturae for a period.  She asserted (at p. 105) that:
   

3. •The epigraphic record reveals: 
   

4. “... octoviri ‘nude dicti’ (who are never recorded as octoviri iure dicundo, even when they certainly had judicial power) and aediles (who are never designated as octoviri)” (my translation, from p. 105).
   

5. •The inscription CIL IX 4182, which dates to 19 BC and which records: 
   

6. T. Vinio Rufo , T. Titsieno oct(o)vir(is)
   

7. Q Orfio Fulcinio, C. Iegio aed(ilibus)
   

8. praefectura Amiternina
   

9. indicates that, while it was still clearly a praefectura:
   

10. “Amiternum was administered by a pair of octoviri with judicial power and a pair of aediles ...: the four magistrates are named [in this inscription] for dating purposes” (my translation, from p. 106).
    

As discussed in my sections below on the individual centres, I think that Sisani’s hypothesis better fits the surviving evidence.

Most important of all, there is no surviving evidence:

1. ✴that any of the attested octovirates (i.e. those at Nursia, Amiternum and Trebula Mutuseca) ever became quattuorvirates; or
   

2. ✴that (pace Sisani, above) the attested quattuorvirates (i.e. those at Reate and Cures) evolved from earlier octovirates.
   

Thus, even if one assumed that CIL XI 5621 and AE 1991, 646 (above) indicated a magisterial octovirate at Plestia that evolved into a quattuorvirate (as evidenced by CIL XI 5619), it would not be possible to find a  securely attested precedent for this development pattern in the Sabine territory (or anywhere else!).

Nevertheless, Plestia might (pace Simonetta Segenni) share one characteristic with at least some of its Sabine neighbours: it might have been a praefectura that was not municipalised until ca. 30 BC, as evidenced, in this case, not by the presence of magisterial octoviri, but by the construction of the putative domus publica (above).  To explore this possibility further, we need to consider each of the Sabine centres individually.

Sabine Territory in the Augustan Period

Red dots = triumviral colonies (Firmum; probably Asculum; probably Hadria)

Blue dots = centres that were centuriated in the Augustan period (Libri Coloniarum)

Adapted from the Digital Atlas of the Roman Empire 

According to Strabo, who was writing at the end of the 1st century BC, the Sabines:

1. “... have but few cities and even these have been brought low on account of the continual wars; they are Amiternum, and Reate ... As for Cures, it is now only a small village, but it was once a city of significance, since it was the original home of two kings of Rome, Titius Tatius and Numa Pompilius.  Trebula ... and other such settlements might be ranked as villages rather than cities”, (‘The Geography’, 5: 3: 1). 
   

Nursia did not feature in Strabo’s account, presumably because (as discussed above) it had been effectively wiped out during the Perusine War.

Nursia

Nursia, the closest of the Sabine cities to Plestia, rebelled against Octavian during the Perusine War.  According to Cassius Dio, after the rebellion:

1. “The inhabitants of Nursia came to terms [with Octavian] without having suffered any ill treatment.  However, ...  [when] they inscribed on [the tombs of those who had fallen during the rebellion] that they had died contending for their liberty, they were punished by an enormous fine, so that they abandoned their city and, at the same time, all their territory” (‘Roman History’, 48: 13: 2-6).
   

The Liber Coloniarum (see Brian Campbell, referenced below, at pp. 176-7) recorded Nursia among some areas of centuriaton where the boundaries were marked:

1. “... in some places by Augustan boundary stones.”
   

Campbell commented (at p. 412, note 72) that, since the original inhabitants of Nursia had abandoned the city, it:

1. “... was certainly a likely target for triumviral allocations [of land for veteran settlement].”
   

Simone Sisani (referenced below, 2013, at p. 14) agreed, and suggested that this settlement probably took place:

1. “ ... soon after Octavian’s definitive victory at Actium in 31 BC.  This ... might have coincided  with the elevation of the praefectura [at Nursia] ... to the rank of a municipium” (my translation).
   

2. 
   

Simone Sisani (referenced below, 2010, at p 204-7) suggested the following chronology for the administrative changes that took place at Nursia at around this time (according to the surviving epigraphic evidence):

1. ✴Before the Perusine War, Nursia had been a praefectura, with a non-judicial octoviral administration.  It rebelled agains Octavian during the war and was subsequently largely abandoned
   

2. ✴The abandoned city was repopulated and municpalised soon after 30 BC. Surviving inscriptions indicate that, by  the very early imperial period, local praefecti iure dicundo had replaced the prefects sent from Rome, and operated either alongside or as part of the indigenous octoviral college.
   

3. ✴The octovirate evolved into a college in which the two senior magistrates were a pair of octoviri duovirali potestate (octoviri with the powers of duoviri).   Sisani suggested (at p. 206) that the earliest of the inscriptions recording this ‘quasi-duovirate’ was AE 2001, 905, which he dated to the early 1st century AD: it commemorated:
   

Numisio f(ilio) Qu]ir(ina) Secun[din]o

VIIIvir IIvir(ali)] pot(estate) q(uin)q(uennali) [II], [p]raef(ecto) Nur(siae)

1. He suggested that the cursus was in descending order, and that this local magistrate had first served as the prefect responsible for judicial matters before twice assuming the same responsibility but with a different title, octovir duovirali potestate quinquennalis.
   

Amiternum

An inscription (CIL IX 4182) that probably dates to 19 BC records an octovir and an aedile at the praefectura Amiternina.  Edward Bispham (referenced below, at p. 466) note 26 observed that:

1. “The mention of decurions at Amiternum in 24 BC may [his italics] indicate that, while still nominally the centre of a praefectura, it had become a municipium.”
   

The relevant inscription here is AE 1992, 0381, which honoured Caius Norbanus Flaccus, quindecimviri sacris faciundus and consul following a decurial decree.  Simonetta Segenni (referenced below,  1992, which I have not been able to consult directly) identified this Norbanus as

1. ✴the consul of 24 BC, in which year he had shared this office with Augustus; and
   

2. ✴one of the quindecimviri sacris faciundus who presided over the Ludi Saeculares, which Augustus held in 17 BC.
   

However, pace Bispham and the EAGLE database, it seems to me that the inscription does not necessarily date to 24 BC, which is rather the terminus post quem: it could conceivably belong to a period after 19 BC in which Amiternum might have been municipalised.  (Norbanus could have had a particular connection with Amiternum: two other inscriptions (AE 1998, 0495 and CIL IX 4334) record that another Caius Norbanus Flaccus, probably his son, who served as suffect consul in 15 BC, dedicated something to the Emperor Tiberius and his wife Julia.)

Simone Sisani (referenced below, 2010, at pp. 199-204)  suggested the following chronology for the administrative changes that (according to the surviving epigraphic evidence) took place at Amiternum at around this time:

1. ✴While still a praefectura, its non-judicial administration was undertaken by an octoviral college.
   

2. ✴It was municipalised soon after 19 BC, but retained its octoviral administration.  A single inscription (CIL IX 4270), which Sisani dated to the Augustan period, recorded a praefectus iure dicundo (local prefect).
   

3. ✴Another inscription (AE 1983, 326), which Sisani he dated to the middle of the 1st century AD, commemorated the duoviri Proculeius Galba and Proculeius Basilus.  He commented (at pp. 202-3) that Amiternum was now administered by:
   

4. “ ... a normal duoviral college, which was canonical for municipia that had been constituted in or after the Caesarian period” (my translation).
   

Trebula Mutuesca

As noted above, Strabo described ‘Trebula’ (which was probably Trebula Mutuesca, on the border between Cures and Rieti) as a simple village in the late 1st century BC.  However,  an entry in the ‘Liber Coloniarum’  (see Brian Campbell, referenced below, at pp. 198-9) reads:

1. “Trebula (probably Trebula Mutuesca), a municipium: it was allocated by means of Augustan limites, [and its] boundaries were demarcated just as in the land of Cures Sabini.”
   

This suggests that, like its neighbour Cures (discussed below), it was municipalised and received veteran settlers in the Augustan period.  Simone Sisani (referenced below, 2010, at p. 219) suggested that the fact that both the Sergia and the Quirina  are found at Trebula Mutuesca suggests that:

1. “... it was nucleated ex novo on territory taken from both Cures and Reate, probably at the time of its late municipalisation in the Augustan period.
   

Simone Sisani (referenced below, 2010, at pp. 193-9) listed a significant number of inscriptions that collectively recorded an octovirate here from the Augustan period until at least the 2nd century AD.  He suggested (at pp. 198-9) that the vicus described by Strabo had been municipalised in the Augustan period, and that this octovirate had been:

1. “... a relic from the pre-municipal period” (my translation).
   

He split these inscriptions  into two groups:

1. ✴The earlier group, which he dated to the period between the first half of the 1st century AD, indicated an undifferentiated octovirate: for example, AE 1994, 0559 recorded Quintus Vibius Kanio of the Qurina tribe, who held office as ‘VIIIvir Trebula’.
   

2. ✴The second group, which he dated to the late 1st and the 2nd centuries, indicated that the functions within the octovirate had become differentiated: for example,  AE 1972, 0153 recorded Titus Prifernus Paetus Rosianus Geminus, who probably came from Trebula Mutuesca, where he served as: magistro iuventis; VIIIvir fanorum quinquennalis (twice); and VIIIvir aedilis quinquennalis (three times).  According to Mary Boatwright (referenced below, at p. 74) he served as the Emperor Hadrian’s curator rei publcae at Trebula Mutuesca in ca. 137 AD, as consul in 146 AD and as governor of Dalmatia in ca. 156-9 AD: all these posts are recorded in the inscription, as is the fact that he was the patron of the municipium.
   

Thus Trebula Mutuesca remained an octovirate into its heyday in the 2nd century AD.

Reate and Cures

Simone Sisani (referenced below, 2010, at p. 217 -8) asserted that:

1. “[Plestia was] elevated to the rank of municipium in the Augustan period. ... In the imperial period ..., like Reate, it had a ‘regular’ quattuorviral constitution, generally understood as a direct evolution from the preceding octovirate. ... [Comparison between Reate and Plestia] allows us to consider as unexceptional the adoption of of a quattuorviral scheme at the moment of passage from praefectura to municipium ... ” (my translation). 
   

He further suggested a similar pattern of development at Cures, in Sabina tiberina. 

In other words, Sisani suggested that Plestia, Reate and Cures had all been praefecturae administered by octoviri until they were municipalised in the Augustan period with quattuorviri.  However:

1. ✴there is no evidence that either Plestia or Cures was ever a praefectura; 
   

2. ✴there is no evidence for either Reate or Cures ever had an octovirate; and
   

3. ✴in my view, the octoviri recorded at Plestia probably belonged to a non-magisterial college.
   

There is, as Sisani asserted, surviving epigraphic evidence that all three centres were quattuorviral municipia in the imperial period.  However, in order to explore the hypothesis that each of them was municipalised with quattuorviri in the Augustan period, it is necessary to consider them individually.

Reate

As noted above, Reate was one of three documented praefecturae in the alta Sabina.  Cicero referred to it as such on three occasions, the last of which was in 54 BC, in a speech (‘Pro Scauro’, 27) in which he defended the “most eminent praefectura” of Reate in a legal case brought by  Interamna Nahars.  Edward Bispham (referenced below, at p. 417) observed that:

1. “... municipia and praefecturae are not mutually exclusive: a praefectura as an administrative district [under the jurisdiction of a Roman prefect] might be based on a municipium ... [However], after the Social War, it seems that the praefectura sometimes takes on a consistency different from that of a municipium, from which [legal documents of this period] distinguish it, and comes to represent the gradation of semi-autonomous community below it: at other times the two clearly overlap, and it is not clear what governs the choice of one term rather than the other.  Where Cicero, for example, refers to a community as a praefectura, he [generally] means that it was not a municipium...”
   

Thus, we might reasonably assume that Reate was not a yet a municipium in 54 BC, and that its status remained thus in ca. 20 BC, when a surviving inscription (CIL IX 4677) records Marcus Agrippa as a patron of  the praefectura Reatinae. 

We know nothing else about the administrative structure at Reate until it is recorded as a municipium administered by quattuorviri in two inscriptions: CIL IX 4754 (late 1st century AD); and CIL IX 4753 (2nd century AD).  It is possible that Agrippa, the most powerful man in Rome after Augustus, sponsored the municipalisation of Reate between ca. 20 BC and his death in 12 BC. 

There is no surviving evidence to indicate an octovirate at Reate.  Thus, if Reate had been municpalised in the Augustan period, one would have expected that it would have had duoviri.  Perhaps this was the case: it might have been received its quattuorvoral constitution decades later: we know from Suetonius that the Emperor Vespasian (69-79 AD):

1. “... was born [in 9 AD] in the Sabine country, in a small village beyond Reate, called Falacrina”, (‘Life of Vespasian’, 2); and
   

when he was afflicted by what proved to be his final illness:

1. “ ... he left for Cutilia and the country about Reate, where he spent the summer every year”, (‘Life of Vespasian’, 24).
   

Laurence Keppie (referenced below, 2000 at p. 281) noted that five funerary inscriptions from Reate (CIL IX: 4682-5 and 4689) commemorate veterans whose epitaphs:

1. “... proudly record [the fact that they had been part of an official settlement] in the formula ‘deductus Reate ab divo Augusto Vespasiano’.”
   

Brian Campbell (referenced below, at p. 431, note 188) noted that:

1. “Although Reate did not become a colony, [viritane] allocations to veterans were made [in its territory], possibly by Augustus, and certainly by Vespasian ...”.
   

It is possible that Caius Anneus Pudens, the father of Caius Anneus Pastor, the quattuorvir of CIL IX 4754, had been settled at Reate under Vespasian.

In short, it is possible that Reate was municipalised with duoviri under Augustus and (like Caruslae, above) subsequently reconstituted with quattuorviri, and both of these putative constitutional changes at Reate might well have been associated with the viritane settlement of veterans in its territory.

Cures (Preliminary Consideration)

The site of the ancient Sabine centre of Cures has been located at Fara in Sabina, in the province of Rieti.   The date of its municipalisation is unknown:

1. ✴As noted above, Strabo, who was writing in the late 1st century BC, reported that, despite its ancient importance, it was “now only a small village”; and
   

2. ✴Simone Sisani (referenced below, 2010, at note 258) listed a number of inscriptions (CIL IX: 4952, 4957, 4958, 4959, 4968, 4970, 4972, 4973, 4975, 4976 and 4978 and AE 1980, 357) that record quattuorviri at Cures (generally referred to in the inscriptions as ‘Cures Sabini’).  The earliest of the these (CIL IX 4952) dates to the period 128-38 AD. 
   

However, we know one other interesting fact about the administrative structure of Cures: most of the ‘quattuorviral’  inscriptions (including CIL IX 4952) also indicate that the decurions at Cures were known as the centumviri, an unusual designation is also found(for example) at the Etruscan centre of Veii (see below).  As John Patterson (referenced below, at p. 222) observed:

1. “Both Cures and Veii had close links with the history of early Rome: 
   

2. ✴Cures, in Roman tradition, was the home town of both Titus Tatius, the leader of the Sabines, and Numa, Rome’s second king; and
   

3. ✴Veii was the main rival of Rome in the early years of the Republic, until its defeat in 396 BC. 
   

4.   Likewise, each had shrunk to a fraction of its former size by the end of the Republic: 
   

5. ✴Strabo says that Cures, once an important city, is now a [village]; while
   

6. ✴Propertius paints a poignant picture of a shepherd playing the pipes within the deserted landscape that was once the city of Veii.
   

7. ... Veii was reconstituted as the Municipium Augustum Veiens by Augustus, and both [Cures and Veii] benefitted from substantial building projects in the Augustan period. ... it is tempting to suggest that the choice of the title centumviri would have been seen as an archaizing initiative reflecting the tradition that the Senate of Romulus had 100 members ... .”
   

John Patterson (referenced below, at p. 222) observed that the only other centre at which this designation is found is at Forum Novum, near Cures.  We might therefore usefully consider the evidence from Veii and Forum Novum before returning to the consideration of the municipalisation of Cures.

Veii

The earliest surviving evidence of a municipium at Veii is in the form of an inscription (CIL XI 3797) that reads:

M(arco) Herennio / M(arci) f(ilio) Picenti co(n)s(uli)

municipes municipi(i) / Augusti Veientis

intramurani / patrono

It thus records that the municipes of the ‘Municipium Augustan Veiens’ had dedicated something to their patron, Marcus Herennius Picens, the consul of 1 AD.  Another inscription (CIL XI 3805) records that, in 26 AD,  Veii was administered by duoviri.  Thus, we can reasonably assume that Veii was constituted as duoviral municipium in the Augustan period.

As noted above, Veii had been a powerful city until its fall to Rome in 396 BC, after which it declined significantly.  There is an enigmatic reference to its later history in the Liber Coloniarum (see Brian Campbell, referenced below, at pp. 172-3):

1. “Before it was attacked, its land was allocated to soldiers in accordance with a lex Julia.  Afterwards, when these died out, the deified Augustus decided that people should be added to the urban settlement.”
   

Barri Jones (referenced below, at pp. 774-5) suggested that the allocation of land to soldiers  ‘before [Veii] was attacked’ had involved veterans of Julius Caesar, and had been recorded by Cicero in a letter (‘Ad. Fam.’, 9: 17) of 46 BC.  More speculatively, he suggested that:

1. “... the obvious occasion for [the attack that followed] would have occurred among the campaigns leading up to the siege of Perusia [in 41 BC] ...” 
   

Specifically, he suggested that Marcus Agrippa had attacked Veii on his march to Perusia along Via Cassia, before his recorded attack on nearby Sutrium.  He concluded (at p. 776) that:

1. “It is plausible therefore that the text of the Liber Coloniarum is correct as it stands, and that the settlement at Veii was the scene of fighting in the second half of 41 BC.”
   

Paolo Liverani (referenced below, at p. 144) broadly agreed with his hypothesis.  Soon after this putative attack, the Augustan poet Propertius (perhaps taking some poetic licence) lamented:

1. “Alas, ancient Veii, you were [once] a kingdom and a golden throne was set in your market place: now the horn of the careless shepherd sounds within your walls...”, (‘Elegies’, 4:10) 
   

Thus, the Augustan municipalisation of Veii followed its devastation in 41 BC, a situation that has obvious parallels with the reconstiution of Augusta Perusia (above).  We might reasonably assume that Herennius, who was a patron of ‘municipes intramurani’, had been among those responsible for the subsequent revival of Veii and for its municipalisation.  Jones observed (at p. 773) that the term intramurani also appears in CIL XI 3799, while ‘municipes extramurani’ are mentioned in CIL XI 3798.  He suggested (at pp. 773-4) that:

1. “If the latter are understood as veterans with land grants in the ager Veientanus [whom Augustus had] united to the municipium, then this would explain the difficult words of the Liber Coloniarum: ‘ad urbanam civitatem associandos’.”
   

In other words, the intramurani included people (like Herennius) whom Augustus had ‘added to the urban settlement’: the municipalisation of Veii with duoviri had been accompanied by a substantial reinforcement of its population and the viritatane  settlement of veterans in its territory, an arrangement that seems to have been similar to those that had attended the reconstitution of Augusta Perusia.

Forum Novum

As noted above, John Patterson (referenced below, at p. 222) observed that Forum Novum, some 25 km northwest of Cures, is the only centre other than Cures itself and Veii at which there is surviving epigraphic evidence for decurial ‘centumviri’.  The earliest of these inscriptions (AE 1990, 250), which is in the mosaic floor of an excavated basilica, reads:

Vibius C. f. Clu(stumina) Celer Stator

Ex decreto C[entum]virum s(ua) p(ecunia) f(ecit)

Francesca Sposito (referenced below) dated it to the second half of the 1st century BC.

According to Edward Bispham (referenced below, at p. 389):

1. “Forum Novum ... was a Roman settlement, as [suggested by] both its name and location(on ground that is lower than the native hill-settlements) ... The site shows archaeological evidence of significant frequentation from the late Republic onwards, but the real growth period appears to have begun in the late 1st century BC.  This growth has been associated with the promotion to municipal status, although other scholars have suggested that the [middle of the 1st century BC] would fit the epigraphic evidence better.”
   

In fact, the epigraphic evidence in question (AE 1990, 250, discussed above) has recently been dated more generally to the second half of the 1st century BC.  Thus, it is entirely possible that Forum Novum became a municipium with decurial centumviri in the Augustan period.  It was certainly duoviral: Edward Bispham (referenced below) described two inscriptions (CIL IX 4789 and AE 1945,0043, his entries D11 and D12 at p. 507) recording duoviri here, both of which he dated to the late 1st century BC or early 1st century AD.

Two entries in the ‘Liber Coloniarum II’  (see Brian Campbell, referenced below, at pp. 194-5 and 198-9 respectively) might be relevant to this discussion:

1. ✴there were Augustan boundary stones on the centuriated land at Forum Novum; and
   

2. ✴the boundaries on the centuriated land at Reate were demarcated in the same way as those at Forum Novum.
   

Thus it is possible that the putative Augustan municipalisation at Forum Novum, like that at Reate (above), was associated with viritane veteran settlement.  It is also possible that, like Reate (above), Forum Novum owed its municipalisation to the influence of Marcus Agrippa: according to Carla Sfameni and her colleagues (referenced below, at p. 106 and note 34), a Roman structure near the church of San Pietro ai Muricento in Montebuono (some 10 km northwest of Forum Novum) is known as the ‘Terme di Agrippa’ because two inscriptions (CIL IX  4779 and another recorded in the early 19th century but now lost) commemorated Marcus Agrippa as consul for the 3rd time (in 27 BC). 

In short, we can reasonably assume that Forum Novum was constituted as a municipium in the Augustan period, and that its administrative structure included duoviri and decurial centumviri.

Cures (Further Consideration)

John Patterson (referenced below, at p. 222) suggested that, given the historical connotation of the decurial centumvirate:

1. “Forum Novum, a small [and, more to the point, a relatively new] centre  may have adopted the title in imitation of its [ancient neighbour]”.
   

It seems to me that this is the most likely explanation, in which case  the decurions at Cures were already designated as centumviri in the second half of the 1st century BC. 

We might therefore consider whether the erstwhile vicus of Cures was constituted as a municipium  in the Augustan period.  Two entries in the ‘Liber Coloniarum’  (see Brian Campbell, referenced below, at pp. 192-3 and 198-9) seem to me to point in that direction:

1. ✴Land division was undertaken at Cures Sabini on the orders of Julius Caesar, presumably for veteran settlement.  This probably parallels the Caesarian settlement at Veii, which (as discussed above) was subsequently municipalised by Augustus in a process that was probably accompanied by the reinforcement of the urban population and the viritane allocation of land to veterans.
   

2. ✴Land at the municipium of Trebula (probably Trebula Mutuesca, on the border of Cures and Rieti) was:
   

3. “... allocated by means of Augustan limites, [and its] boundaries were demarcated just as in the land of Cures Sabini.”
   

In other words, it seems that veterans were settled in and around Cures in the Augustan period, and this could well have triggered its constitution as a municipium. 

However, if Cures had been an Augustan municipium, then one would have expected that, like Veii and Perusia (both ancient cities that had risen from the ashes), it would have been given a duoviral constitution.  Edward Bispham (referenced below, at p. 466, note 26) put forward a simpler hypothesis:

1. “Cures was quattuorviral under the empire: ... its promotion may be from not long after the Social War.”
   

On this scenario, the centumviri at Veii, like those at Forum Novum, would have been inspired by those at Cures.  The problem with this ‘obvious solution’ is that leaves us wondering why Strabo regarded Cures as only a vicus at the end of the century.  An Augustan municipalisation therefore seems more likely:

1. ✴It is possible that Cures was municipalised with duoviri at this time and  elevated to quattuorviral status by Vespasian or another emperor.
   

2. ✴Alternatively, as Simone Sisani (referenced below, 2010, at p. 219) suggested, it might have been municipalised under Augustus with quattuorviri.  (I wonder if a a possible reason for this anomaly might have been the fact that Cures had been granted full Roman citizenship in 268 BC.)
   

Precedents in Sabine Territory: My Conclusions

I started this section with Strabo’s account of the Sabine lands at the end of the 1st century BC:

1. “[The Sabines] have but few cities and even these have been brought low on account of the continual [civil] wars; they are Amiternum, and Reate ... As for Cures, it is now only a small village ...”, (‘The Geography’, 5: 3: 1). 
   

Nursia did not even feature in this account, presumably because it had been effectively abandoned after the Perusine War.

One would therefore expect that much of this devastated territory would have been available for veteran settlement in the triumviral period.  However, there is no evidence for colonisation (as occurred, for example, at Hispellum and Tuder,  as mentioned above).  Nevertheless, Ettore Pais (referenced below, at p. 283) magisterially declared that, given the evidence to be found in the Libri coloniarum:

1. “I see no argument to deny that there were viritane assignments of land in various parts of the Sabina to veterans of Caesar on the part of the future Emperor Augustus.  ...  there were other [such assignments] at the time of Vespasian” (my translation and my bold italics).
   

I argued above that this veteran settlement on the Sabine lands was relatively widespread, and associated with a programme of urban renewal and municipalisation that mirrored that evidenced at Veii in Southern Etruria:

1. ✴The continuation of the octovirate at Nursia, Amiternum and Trebula Mutuseca after municipalisation seems to be an anomalous development that was specific to these three centres.
   

2. ✴Forum Novum was probably municipalised with duoviri in the Augustan period.
   

3. ✴Each of Reate and Cures was probably municipalised in the Augustan period:
   

4. •either, like Veii, with duoviri, in which case these were replaced by quattuorviri, perhaps under Vespasian;
   

5. •or, anomalously, with quattuorviri.
   

As noted above, Simone Sisani (referenced below, 2010, at p. 219) asserted that comparison between Plestia on one hand and Reate and Cures on the other indicates that the transition from praefectura to quattuorviral municipium was not exceptional in the Augustan period.  However:

1. ✴I pointed out above that there is no evidence that either Plestia or Cures was ever constituted as a praefectura (although either or both of them might have been);
   

2. ✴there is no evidence that any of Reate, Cures or Plestia had a quattuorviral constitution in the Augustan period (although any of them might have been so-costituted at this time); and
   

3. ✴most importantly, both Reate and Cures were arguably exceptional in important respects:
   

4. •Reate enjoyed the patronage of Marcus Agrippa  in the Augustan period and was later the home of Vespasian, who settled a number of his veterans there; and
   

5. •Cures, which had a unique place in theRoman’s perception of their early history, had first been enfranchised in 268 BC.
   

In other words, while Plestia would have been subject to political forces similar to those experienced in the Sabine territory to the south, there is no evidence that it its constitutional development followed the same path as that of any of the Sabine municipia.

Augustan Municipalisation in Modern Umbria

Red dots = triumviral/ Augustan colonies at Hispellum and Tuder

Dark blue dots = Augustan duovirates at Perusia, Arna, Vettona and Clusium

Light blue dots = Augustan duovirates later changed to quattuorvirates at Carsulae (?) and Plestia (??) 

Adapted from the Digital Atlas of the Roman Empire 

Plestia is on the western edge of modern Umbria, which is largely coincident with the part of the Augustan Regio VI that lies to the west of the Apennines. It also includes the Etruscan city of Perusia (Perugia), and I have added Clusium (Chiusi, in modern Tuscany) to the discussion of this broad area for reasons that will become apparent. 

The most striking fact about its constitutional development is that the great majority of its urban centres were (or were probably) municipalised with quattuorviri before the end of the Republic (see, for example: Edward Bispham, at  pp 464-5: Simone Sisani, 2007, at p. 268; and Enrico Zuddas, at p. 121, note 1; all referenced below).  However, Enrico Zuddas (as above), in the opening abstract of his paper, pointed out that:

1. “The Perusine War [0f 41-40 BC] deeply transformed the social and political structures of the surrounding area.”
   

This was actually a Roman civil war, which earned its title because one of the protagonists, Lucius Antonius (the brother of the triumvir Mark Antony, who was now based in the east) chose to take refuge here.  His opponent, Octavian (the triumvir based in Rome, who would emerge as the Emperor Augustus), successfully besiege to the city, which suffered terribly for having chosen the loosing side.

In fact, the transformation of the political structure of this region slightly pre-dated the war: as we shall see, a tract of land between Asisium (Assisi) and Mevania (Bevagna) was confiscated for proposed colony at Hispellum (Spello).  This colony had probably been designated in in 43 BC, as part of a  settlement programme for soldiers who agreed to remain in the service of the triumvirs in order to defeat the last of Caesar’s murderers.  The task was completed at Philippi in late 42 BC, and veterans seem to have been settled at Hispellum soon after.  Perusia was effectively destroyed after its fall in 40 BC, and it also suffered the confiscation of its extensive territory, which was now at Octavian’s disposal.  A second colony was founded at Tuder (Todi), probably after Octavian’s defeat of Mark Antony in 31 BC, which heralded a definitive end to the long series of civil wars that had convulsed Italy for decades.  By this time, the spoils of war in Egypt allowed Octavian to acquire the necessary land without the brutal confiscations of 43-40 BC.

Hispellum and Tuder thus became veteran colonies administered by duovir.  More surprisingly, as we shall see, Perusia, which had been municipalised with quattuorviri after the Social War, subsequently emerged from the ashes as a newly constituted duoviral municipium, renamed Augusta Perusia.  Enrico Zuddas continued:

1. “The duoviral statutes of Arna [Civitella d'Arno] and Vettona [Bettona] are, by common consent, connected to these circumstances: in all probability, even the introduction of the duovirate at Clusium and maybe also that at Carsulae [see below] could be a consequence of a territorial redefinition ... after the war.”
   

These constitutional changes, which potentially provide precedents for the municipalisation of Plestia, are discussed in turn below.

Perusia

As noted above, the quattuorviral municipium of Perusia lost much of its extra-urban territory in 40 BC:

1. ✴As discussed below, the centres of Arna and Vettona, which had probably belonged to Perusia before the Perusine War, achieved autonomy as municipal duovirates thereafter.
   

2. ✴In addition, a number of inscriptions in the vicinity of Perusia commemorate men from the Lemonia and Clustumina tribes, which suggests that veterans who belonged to the new colonies at Hispellum (Lemonia) and Tuder (Clustumina) had received land on what had been Perusine territory. 
   

A series of inscriptions illuminate the administrative structure of Perusia itself after the war:

1. ✴It continued as a quattuorviral municipium for a period, as evidenced by two inscriptions that commemorate two men (probably father and son) who served as quattuorviri at some time in the period 20-1 BC:
   

2. •AE 1979 246 commemorates A(ulo) Atilio L(uci) f(ilio) Glabrioni / IIIIvir(o); and
   

3. •CIL XI 1934 commemorates C(aius) Atilius A(uli) f(ilius) Glabrio/ IIIIvir quinq(uennalis.
   

4. ✴At some time after 27 BC (when the triumvir Octavian became the Emperor Augustus), Perusia was re-constituted as ‘Augusta Perusia’, as evidenced by three inscriptions on the city’s ancient gates (CIL XI 1929:1; CIL XI 1930:1; and the now fragmentary CIL XI 1931b,: the EAGLE database dates all three to the period 1-14 AD).  Two other  inscriptions from this period commemorate men who were described as ‘IIIIvir, IIvir’:
   

5. •CIL XI 1943 commemorates Lucius Proculeius; and
   

6. •CIL XI 1944 commemorates Publius Volumnius Violens.
   

7. It seems likely that these men held office in the year in which the old quattuorviral muncipium was reconstituted with duoviri as Augusta Perusia. 
   

8. ✴A later inscription, CIL XI 1941 (late 1st century AD), commemorates Gaius Betuus Cilo, duovir and  patrono municipi.
   

Arna and Vettona

According to Lorena Rosi Bonci and Maria Carla Spadoni (referenced below, at p. 206):

1. “Arna [now Civitella d’Arna] and Vettona [Bettona] followed the same path as Perusia: when the latter was ‘restored’ by Augustus and converted into a municipality administered by duoviri  ... [Arna and Vettona were also] instituted as autonomous municipalities that ... received ... duoviri.  It must therefore be assumed that, in the previous period, both Vettona and Arna had been administratively dependent on Perusia: such outposts on the left bank of the Tiber [would have given Perusia] full control of the river valley” (my translation).
   

It seems to me that Arna and Vettona might have been constituted as autonomous duoviral municipia soon after the Perusine War:

1. ✴Arna: CIL XI 5802 (30BC - 30AD), which was discussed above in the context of Tadinum, might record Cnaeus Disinius as a duovir at Arna.  A later inscription CIL XI 5614 (2nd century AD) certainly records Ṿeiedius Crescens in this capacity.
   

2. ✴Vettona: two inscriptions (CIL XI 7979 and AE 1996, 653b, both from the period 1 - 30AD) commemorate the duovir Sextus Valerius Proculus.
   

Clusium

Enrico Zuddas (referenced below, 2017, at p. 126) suggested that, since:

1. ✴the new colony at Tuder was located in an area that lacked fertile territory in its immediate vicinity; and
   

2. ✴two now-lost funerary inscriptions (EDR148134 and EDR148135, 1st century BC) from Agello (some 16 km west of Perugia, towards Lake Trasimeno and some 40 km northwest of Todi) commemorated a father and son who were assigned to the Clustumina, which was the tribe of Tuder:
   

3. “... it is legitimate to suppose that land was ... assigned to [Tuder] in the southern and eastern part of Lake Trasimeno, which had belonged to Perusia and Clusium” (my translation).
   

He also analysed the epigraphic evidence for a change of the constitution of Clusium: he characterised:

1. ✴an inscription (AE 1900, 187 = CIL XI 7122), which dated to the middle of the Augustan period, as the last reference to the quattuorvirate at Clusium: it commemorated Aulus Vensius of the Arnensis tribe (the tribe of Clusium), who had twice held office as quattuorvir; and
   

2. ✴an inscription (CIL XI 2128), which the EAGLE database dates to the 2nd half of the 1st century AD, as the earliest reference to the duorvirate at Clusium; it commemorated a now-anonymous duovir quinquennalis.
   

He concluded that:

1. “We might therefore ask whether Clusium was also involved in the [land confiscations and administrative changes that followed] the Perusine War” (my translation).
   

Carsulae

Carsulae, which has been identified on an excavated site some 25 km south of Tuder , was first mentioned in the surviving sources by Strabo in the late 1st century BC:

“The cities [of Umbria west] of the Apennines that are worthy of mention are: first, on the [Via Flaminia]: Ocricli (Otricoli),  ...  Narnia (Narni), ... Carsuli, and Mevania (Bevagna) ...”, (‘Geography’, 5:2:10).

According to Simone Sisani (referenced below, 2006, at p. 181):

1. “... it seems to have grown up ex novo, not earlier that the 2nd century BC, probably as a centre for the scattered viritane [citizen] settlers in the surrounding territory ...” (my translation).
   

Although Carsulae could conceivably have been constituted as a duoviral municipium before the Social War or in the Caesarian period, Enrico Zuddas (referenced below, 2017, at p. 128) suggested that its municipalisation might alternatively have been associated with:

1. “... the deduction of the colony of Tuder [probably in 27 BC]: this would be consistent with the urbanisation of Carsulae, which is generally dated to the Augustan period.  The [surviving epigraphic evidence is] consistent with this hypothesis” (my translation).
   

The relevant inscriptions are:

1. ✴CIL XI 4575, which dates to the late 1st century BC, commemorates  ‘[---]lius Ti(beri) f(ilius) Pup(inia) Clemens’ as ‘IIvir iure dicundo Carsulis sex(ies?)’.  (If the completion is  correct, he held the post six times.)
   

2. ✴EDR138898, which Enrico Zuddas (referenced below, 2017, at p. 128) dates to ca. 35 BC (although the EAGLE database gives 70-30 BC), commemorates two duoviri quinquennales:
   

3. •Coelius Titianus, son of Lucius; and
   

4. •Egnatius Apicula, son of Caius.
   

5. ✴Enrico Zuddas (referenced below, 2017, at p. 129) referred to a third inscription that Elena Roscini is about to publish, which commemorates the duovir Lucius Furius Clemens.  Its likely date indicates that duovirale administration continued at Carsulae until at least the middle of the first century AD.
   

A series of inscriptions attests the subsequent introduction of a quattuorviral constitution at Carsulae.  The earliest of these (CIL XI 4572), which dates to the 2nd half of the 1st century AD, probably came from the mausoleum outside the city gate:

1. ✴it commemorates a father and son, both called Caius Furius Tiro and assigned to the  Clustumina, each of whom had served as quattuorvir quinquennalis; and 
   

2. ✴the dedicants included Lucius Nonius Asprenas, who had served as quattuorvir.
   

Enrico Zuddas (referenced below, at 2017, pp. 129-30) suggested that this change of administration:

1. “... might be attributed to the involvement of [Carsulae] in the events of the winter of 69 AD [when Vespasian’s army camped here during the civil war] and to be understood as a reward for the support that the city provided  [at that time]: the introduction of the quattuorvirate might indicate the restitution, by Vespasian, of lands taken from the Carsulae after the Perusine War [of 41-40 BC]” (my translation).
   

This putative confiscation could, for example, have been associated with the foundation of the colony at Tuder, which, as noted above, probably took place in 27 BC.

Precedents in Modern Umbria: My Conclusions

There is no surviving epigraphic evidence to link Plestia directly to the administrative upheaval that followed the fall of Perusia and the foundation of the triumviral/ Augustan colonies at Hispellum and Tuder.  Nevertheless, there are some pointers here to its likely administrative history:

1. ✴Arna, Vettona and possibly Carsulae were municipalised as duovirates, and Perusia and Chiusi were reconstituted as duovirates, in this period; and
   

2. ✴Carsulae was reconstituted as a quattuorvirate in the second half of the 1st century AD.
   

Thus, we cannot rule out the hypothesis that Plestia was municipalised as a duovirate in ca. 30 BC and reconstituted as a quattuorvirate at some point before ca. 200 AD.

Apennine Umbria

Green road = Via Flaminia, according to surviving itineraries

Red road = so-called proto-Flaminia; purple roads = other ancient roads

Black road = road recorded on the lapis Aesinensis (AE 1990, 0328, late 1st century BC)

Tribal assignations: dark blue = Oufentina; red = Cornelia; yellow = Lemonia;

green = Pollia; purple = Camilia; light blue = Velina

Towns underlined = triumviral/ Augustan colonies

Adapted from Federico Uncini (referenced below, at p. 22)

A side road from Forum Flaminii on Via Flaminia led to Plestia and Camerinum and then north along a syncline valley to Sentinum, from whence roads along the Misa and Cesena valleys continued to the coast.

Sentinum, Attidium and Tuficum

Valentina Casella and Maria Federica Petraccia began their paper on the urbanisation of Sentinum (referenced below) with the observation that:

1. “In the territory between the [modern cities] of Sassoferrato and Fabriano, [we find the remains  of] the flourishing municipalities of Sentinum, Attidium and Tuficum, as shown by numerous [surviving] epigraphic records of knights, senators, municipal magistrates and, more generally, outstanding personalities within the political landscape of the period” (my translation.
   

Municipalisation of Sentinum, Attidium and Tuficum

Sentinum

The territory of Sentinum was the site of an important Roman victory over the Samnites and their allies in 295 BC.  However, its history from this point is essentially undocumented until Octavian besieged it in 41 BC (see below): as Marina Lo Blundo (referenced below, at p. 15) pointed out: 

1. “In relation to the origins of the [urban centre] of Sentinum [which has been excavated on a site immediately south of modern Sassoferrato], only archaeological data come to our rescue: [the surviving literary sources, which relate to the Battle of Sentinum in 295 BC] speak only of the ‘territory of Sentinum’ and do not mention the presence of nearby urban centres at the time of the battle.  We might reasonably assume the existence of  ... a [dispersed] rural community ...  [Archaeological finds found at the excavated site] do not date back before ca. 100 BC, and seem to associate  the birth of the city to the reorganisation of the territory after the Social War (91-89 BC)  ...” (my translation).
   

These archeological remains include a stretch of the city walls, which must have existed at the time of the siege of 41 BC.  Gianfranco Paci (referenced below, 2008) discussed two fragmentary inscriptions (CIL XI 5764 and EDR016260) that relate to the construction of the city wall: the EDR database (following an earlier publication by Paci) comments that:

1. “It is extremely likely that [these inscriptions] represent two parallel editions of the same epigraphic text, placed at two different points of the walls, in connection with the city gates” (my translation).
   

Paci dated them (at p. 241) to the period 80-50 BC.  The fragment CIL XI 5764 reads:

[Posi]denius, P̣[---]ens qu[---]

[---]eintis loco [o]pservan[dus]

[--- m]urum faciun[d]um co[iraverunt ---]

Valentina Casella and Maria Federica Petraccia (referenced below, at pp. 130-1, citing Gianfranco Paci, referenced below, 2008, at p. 242) suggested that qu[---] in line 1 might be completed as quinq(uennalis) which:

1. “... could lead to the hypothesis that the slab (of large dimensions) was placed in memory of  the construction,of the city walls in the Republican age, by (among others) a magistrate with censorial authority.  The construction could, in fact, have coincided with [municipalisation and the enfranchisement of the new municipes]” (my translation).
   

Although the hypothesis above is attractive, the hard epigraphic evidence all belongs to the 1st century AD or later:

1. ✴A number of surviving inscriptions show that Sentinum was certainly assigned to the Lemonia tribe: 
   

2. •The earliest of those that can be reasonably securely dated is CIL XI 5754, from Sentinum, which probably belongs to the 1st century AD, commemorates two aediles assigned to the Lemonia. 
   

3. •However, the most definitive are CIL VI 2380/1, which came from Rome and date to 172 AD: they record the soldiers of an urban cohort, including:
   

4. .... s T(iti) f(ilius) Lem(onia) Fortunatus Sen(tino).
   

5. ✴The earliest indication of  the quatturorviral constitution of the municipium is in the inscription CIL XI 5758, from Sentinum: this inscription records that Caius Paccius Causus, who was originally from Tereventum is Samnium, had served at Sentinum as quatturovir iure ducundo and quattuorvir quinquennalis.  According to Maria Federica Petraccia (in M. F.  Petraccia (Ed.), referenced below, 2007, at pp. 149-50):
   

6. ✴“... the inscription can be ascribed indicatively to the 1st century AD, perhaps to the first half [of the century]”, (my translation).
   

In summary, although the surviving archeological evidence, combined with CIL XI 5764, suggest that Sentinum was municipalised in the decades following the Social War, all the surviving hard epigraphic evidence for its quattuorviral constitution and its assignation to the Lemonia post-dates the depredations of Octavian’s army in 41 BC by some tens of decades.

Attidium

Attidium (which has been excavated on a site some 6 km south of modern Fabriano) hardly features in recorded history, other than in the ‘Libri coloniarum’ (see below).  However, surviving epigraphic evidence from the excavated site indicates its administrative history, at least from the 1st century AD:

1. ✴A number of inscriptions from this period (see, for example, CIL XI 5675) indicate that, like Sentinum, it was assigned to the Lemonia tribe.
   

2. ✴CIL XI 5673  records a patron of the municipium:
   

3. L(ucio) Sibidieno L(uci) f(ilio) Ouf(entina)Sabino
   

4. trib(uno)/ milit(um), proc(uratori)/ provinc(iae) Afric(ae)
   

5. patr(ono) munic(ipi)
   

6. T(estamento) p(oni) i(ussit).
   

7. Although the inscription was found here, Sibidienus’ tribal assignation indicates that he was a native of nearby Tuficum (where he is also attested, as discussed below).  Ségolène Demougin (referenced below, at pp. 535-6, entry 634) dated his career to the reigns of Claudius and Nero (i.e. 41- 68 AD).
   

8. ✴CIL XI 5676, which dates to the 1st century AD, commemorates Lucius Attidus Latinus, who was a quattuorvir quinquennalis and patron of the municipium.
   

Tuficum

Tuficum (which has been excavated on a site some 10 km east of modern Fabriano) is also barely mentioned in recorded history, other than in the ‘Libri coloniarum’ (see below).  The earliest epigraphic evidence for its administrative structure again dates to the 1st century AD. 

1. ✴A number of inscriptions from Tuficum record Lucius Sibidienus Sabinus, who belonged to the Oufentina, as a patron of the municipium.  These include  CIL XI 5689, which reads:
   

2. [---] Aug(ust-) sacrum
   

3. [L(ucius) Sibidienus L(uci) f(ilius) Ouf(entina) S]abinus,
   

4. trib(unus) mil(itum), cur(ator) viar(um)/ [et pont(ium) Umbr(iae) et Pic(eni)
   

5. proc(urator) pr]ovinc(iae) Afric(ae)/
   

6. pat(ronus) mun(icipi)
   

7. p(ecunia) s(ua) f(ecit)
   

8. Ségolène Demougin (referenced below, at pp. 535-6, entry 634) dated his career to the reigns of Claudius and Nero (i.e. 41- 68 AD).  (A testamentary inscription (CIL XI 5673) mentioned above records that he was also a patron of Attidium.
   

9. ✴CIL XI 5708 records another patron of Tuficum  who was also a quattuorvir:
   

10. [I]IIIV[ir(o)]/ [—] Sibidien[us —]/ patr(ono) V[—]
    

11. Since the quattuorvirate is not mentioned in the testamentary inscription of Lucius Sibidienus Sabinus from Attidium (above), we might reasonably assume that this quattuorvir was Caius Sibidienus Maximus, who is also attested at Tuficum and who was probably Sabinus’ cousin or uncle 
    

Municipalisation of Sentinum, Attidium and Tuficum: Preliminary Conclusions

The archeological evidence from Sentinum, combined with the epigraphic evidence of CIL XI 5764 and EDR016260, suggests that it was urbanised for the first time and municipalised at some time in the period 90-41 BC.  However, before the 1st century AD, (CIL XI 5764 and EDR016260), there is no surviving evidence for:

1. ✴quattuorviri at Sentinum; or
   

2. ✴municipalisation of any kind at Attidium of Tuficum.
   

Camerinum and Matilica

The surviving evidence for a duoviral municipium at Matilica is in the form of an inscription (CIL XI 5646) of 132 AD, which commemorates Arrius Clemens, who belonged to the Cornelia tribe: he held office as a duovir quinquennalis and was the Emperor Hadrian’s curator at Matilica and a patron of the municipium:

1. ✴A slightly earlier inscription (CIL XI 5645, 70-150 AD) might record municipes at Matilica.
   

2. ✴Another slightly earlier inscription (CIL XI 5650, 75-100 AD) commemorates another man who belonged to the Cornelia, so we might reasonably assume that this was the tribe of Matilica.
   

Matilica’s neighbours (Sentinum, Tuficum and Attidium to the north and Camerinum to the south) were all quattuorviral municipia. 

1. ✴Gianfranco Paci (referenced below, 2002, at pp. 82-5) suggested that the apparently anomalous constitution of Matilica indicated that its history had mirrored that of the municipia of the ager Picenus and the ager Gallicus, which suggested that it too had been constituted on land that had been confiscated by the Romans in the 3rd century BC. 
   

2. ✴However, as Simone Sisani (referenced below, 2007, at p. 70) pointed out, this leaves open the reason for the assignation of Matilica to the Cornelia.
   

A series of inscriptions indicate that Camerinum also belonged to the Cornelia:

1. ✴AE 1977, 182 (from Fidenae): Aullius Camers; Cornelia; 2nd half of the 1st century AD;
   

2. ✴CIL XI 5634: ..... Barbarus; Cornelia; IIIIvir iure dicundo, patrono Camertes; 2nd half of the 2nd century AD;
   

3. ✴CIL XI 5635: Caius Veianius Rufus; Cornelia; aedile, IIIIvir iure dicundo, patrono muncipi et complurium civitatium,: he was appointed as ‘curator rei publicae Plestinorum’ by two Antonine emperors, probably Marcus Aurelius and Commodus, who were joint Augustii in the period 177-80 AD.
   

4. ✴CIL XI 5632: Maenius Agrippa Lucius Tusidius Campester; Cornelia; patrono municipi, 140-60 AD.
   

Two of these indicate that, at least by the late 2nd century AD, Camerinum was a municipium administered by quattuorvori.  An inscription from Cignano, some 6 km south of Camerinum:

1. ✴CIL XI 5633: anonymous; Lemonia; IIIIvir iure dicundo, 1st century AD
   

presumably commemorated another quattuorvir who presumably held office at Camerinum, albeit that he was assigned to the Lemonia.

The Cornelia was an ancient tribe to which the people of Arpinum had been assigned in 188 BC, when they had been granted citizenship.  It was thus the tribe of the consul Caius Marius, who came from Arpinum and who, according to Plutarch:

1. “ ... bestowed citizenship upon as many as 1,000 men of Camerinum for conspicuous bravery [in 101 BC, during the final battle of the Cimbrian War]”, (‘Life of Marius’ 28:2).  
   

It is usually assumed that these men were assigned to the Cornelia, and that this tribe was also assigned to Camerinum itself when it became a municipium.  Most scholars assume that this occurred immediately after the Social War: for example, Edward Bispham (referenced below, at p. 469, note 119), asserted that Camerinum:

1. “... was certainly enfranchised by the Lex Julia [of ca. 90 BC].”
   

The name Camerinum is given to modern Camerino, on the eastern side of the Apennines, only from the late Republic (see for example, Julius Caesar’s reference to it in  his ‘Civil Wars’, 1: 15)

In his speech ‘pro Sulla’ (81 BC), Cicero asserted that support for the Catilinarian conspiracy had been rife:

1. “... in agro Camerti, Piceno, Gallico (in the Camertine, Picenian and Gallic districts) ...”
   

An inscription (CIL XI 5642, 33 BC) that was found near the Roman bridge at Prolaqueum (marked on the map above), roughly halfway between Matilica and Camerinum commemorates Octavian (named in the inscription as the son of the deified Imperator Caesar) as patron

Sentinum, Attidium and Tuficum in the Libri Coloniarum

As noted above, the information of the Libri Coloniarum needs to be used with care.   I will attempt to do so in the sections below on the entries for Sentinum, Attidium  and Tuficum: references are to the English translations by Brian Campbell (referenced below).

Sentinum

The relevant entry (at p. 199) reads:

1. “Sentinum, an oppidum: Its land was allocated under a triumviral lex ...”
   

Brian Campbell commented (at p. 431, note 189) that:

1. “Sentinum was besieged by Octavian in 41 BC and may have been punished with a stiff fine, like Nursia [above] ... It is plausible that some triumviral settlement took place [here], although there is no archeological confirmation.”
   

Campbell probably understates the punishment that Sentinum faced at this time: according to Cassius Dio, Gaius Furnius held Sentinum for the rebel Lucius Antonius (the brother of Mark Antony) while Octavian led a besieging army outside its walls.  However, when he heard that Lucius himself had taken Rome, he marched in that direction, leaving Quintus Salvidienus Rufus to keep watch on Sentinum:

1. “As soon as [Octavian] had left [for Rome], Gaius Furnius ... issued forth and pursued him a long distance.  [Salvidienus] unexpectedly attacked the citizens inside and, capturing the town, plundered and burned it”, (‘Roman History’, 48: 13: 6).
   

Campbell also seems to underestimate the weight of the surviving archeological evidence: for example Casella and Petraccia (referenced below, at p. 128), suggested that Sentinum was completely destroyed by Octavian’s army but:

1. “... managed to overcome the crisis .., as evidenced by the subsequent intense building activity from [the Augustan period until at least the the end] of  2nd century AD, which was promoted by both ancient families and new inhabitants [who were] veterans of the civil wars.  This information can be deduced, not primarily from literary sources, which provide very little information about Sentinum, but from epigraphic and archaeological evidence, which reveals the existence of a rich and lively town” (my translation).
   

Laurence Keppie (referenced below, 1983, at p. 62) addressed the likely significance of the numerous entries in the Libri Coloniarum that:

1. “... report work carried out ‘a Triumviris’ or ‘lege triumvirale’ at towns that [like, for example, Sentinum] remained municipia under the Empire:
   

2. ✴some towns in this category that lie close to known colonies may have suffered by their expansion; and
   

3. ✴other references may testify to detached praefecturae of individual colonies.
   

4. In most cases, we lack the means of verifying this information.  Small groups of veterans ... may have been accommodated in this way [at some of these centres after Philippi.”
   

The term ‘praefectura’ is used here (following the practice of the Roman surveyors) to  designate land that had been confiscated from a town and allocated to a nearby colony, which thereafter had jurisdiction over it. 

It is entirely likely that Sentinum belonged to one of these categories: it lies roughly half way between two colonies (Hispellum and Ancona) that were founded after Philippi, and (as discussed below) all three centres were assigned to the Lemonia.  It is thus likely that, in ca. 40 BC)  its devastated territory was settled by veterans assigned to the Lemonia. (I discuss the jurisdictional issue below.)  

Attidium and Tuficum

The relevant entries (at p. 191 and p. 199 respectively) read:

1. ✴“Adteiatis oppidum: Its land in several places was allocated  in centuriae ... [Boundaries are marked] in some places by Augustan boundary stones ...”; and
   

2. ✴“Tuficum, an oppidum: ... Its lands were dealt with under the same lex as the land of Attidium”.
   

Laurence Keppie (referenced below, at p. 79) observed that:

1. “Entries in the Liber Coloniarum that report work carried out by Augustus may  ... serve as evidence of small-scale settlement, some of it perhaps after Actium [31 BC].
   

Brian Campbell observed at p. 428, note 160) that there is no surviving supporting evidence for Augustan land allocation at Attiudim and (at p. 431 note 194) that there is no confirmation of this in the form of evidence for Augustan activity at Tuficum.  Note, however, that Ilaria Venanzoni (referenced below, at pp. 57-8) identified possible traces of centuriation along the road from Tuficum to Matilica that might be consistent with the technical information given in these entries (omitted in the extracts above). 

For Eleonora Salomone Gaggero (referenced below, 2009, at p. 106):

1. “... the mention of the ‘Augustan boundary stones’ makes it probable that the centuriation of the territory of Attidium [and Tuficum] should be located in a particular historical moment: that which followed the civil war between Mark Antony and Octavian [who became Emperor Augustus in 27 BC] ... On the evidence of the surviving testimonies, the region corresponding to the current Marche, to which many soldiers probably returned after their discharge, was significantly affected by this phenomenon, albeit in a complex manner:
   

2. ✴some areas witnessed the deduction of colonies that involved the settlement  of many new settlers, to the detriment of those who previously resided there; while
   

3. ✴at others, there were only individual land assignments, which, as Augusto himself states [in his autobiography - see below], were purchased by him for this purpose various municipalities.
   

The latter group includes Attidium [and Tuficum], which, like the neighbouring ... Sentinum, ... did not change their legal status, which ... remained that of municipia (my translation).

Sentinum, Attidium and Tuficum in the Libri Coloniarum: Preliminary Conclusions

It seems to me that, if we place these entries in the Libri Coloniarum in the context of:

1. ✴the documented destruction of Sentinum during the civil war of 41-40 BC; and
   

2. ✴the admittedly scant archeological, topographical and epigraphic evidence presented above;
   

then veteran settlement after Philippi in the territory of Sentinum seems highly likely.  It is also entirely possible that all of Sentinum, Attidium and Tuficum were involved in a second waive of veteran settlement after Actium.

Conclusion

Before the civil war between Octavian and Lucius Antonius, Sentinum was probably and Attidium was possibly a municipium assigned to a tribe other than the Lemonia.

Eleonora Salomone Gaggero (referenced below, 2009, at p. 106) referenced two passage in Augustus’ biography:

1. ✴“[After the victory at Actium in 31 BC,] I settled more than 300,000 [veterans] in colonies or sent them back into their own municipia, and to all I assigned lands or gave money as a reward for military service”, (‘Res Gestae Divi Augusti’, 1: 3: 3).
   

2. ✴“[In 30 BC,] I paid money to the municipia for the lands which I assigned to soldiers ...”, (‘Res Gestae Divi Augusti’, 3: 16: 1).
   

Finally, she suggested (at p. 107) that, on the basis of the evidence in the ‘Libri coloniarum’:

1. “Attidium, like neighbouring Tuficum and Sentinum, was to some extent involved in this complex reorganisation: [these centres] did not change [their] legal status, which ... remained that of [municipia]”, (my translation).