The Hellenic municipalities were developments from the poleis, or city-states, which existed prior to the Roman conquest in Greece and the Hellenized areas of Asia and Africa. Municipal towns organized in these areas subsequent to the Roman occupation were of the same type. Their language of government, as well as of general intercourse, was Greek. The characteristic political institutions of the Hellenic municipalities were a popular assembly, a council or boule and annual magistrates. The assembly had the power to initiate legislation; the council and magistrates were elected by it or were chosen by lot. But even under the Roman republic these democratic institutions were considerably modified in the interests of the wealthier classes. Timocratic constitutions were established with required property qualifications for citizenship and for the council and offices. The principate saw a further development along the same lines. The assemblies lost their right to initiate legislation, a power which passed to the magistrates, while the council tended to become a body of ex-[pg 284]magistrates who held their seats for life. However, in spite of this approximation to the Latin type, the Greek official terminology remained unchanged throughout the first three centuries A. D.
The Latin type of municipality was that which developed on Italian soil with the extension of Roman domination over the peninsula, and which was given uniformity by the legislation of Julius Caesar. With the Romanization of the western part of the empire it spread to Africa, Spain, Gaul, Britain, Germany and the Danubian provinces. In spite of the distinctions in status between Roman and Latin colonies and municipia, all these classes of municipalities were of the same general type which is revealed to us in the Julian Municipal Law (45 B. C.), the charter of the Roman Colonia Genetiva Julia (44 B. C.), and those of the Latin municipalities of Malaca and Salpensa (81–84 A. D.).
The constitutions of these municipalities were patterned closely after that of Rome, although certain titles, like those of consul and Senate were reserved for the capital city. Like Rome, the municipal towns had their officials, their council (curia, ordo), and their plebs. The chief magistrates were a pair of duovirs (or at times a college of quattuovirs), who were assisted by two aediles, and two quaestors The duovirs were in charge of the local administration of justice, and in general conducted the public affairs of the community. Every fifth year the duovirs were called quinquennales and took the census. The aediles had charge of public works, and market and police regulations, while the quaestors were the local treasury officials. All the officials were elected by popular vote, but a definite property qualification was required of each candidate. If no candidates presented themselves for any particular office, provision was made for the nomination of candidates who must serve if elected. At his election each magistrate paid into the treasury, or expended in accordance with the direction of the council, a definite sum of money (summa honoraria), which varied for each office in different communities. Oftentimes these officers did not restrict themselves to the required sum but took this opportunity for displaying their municipal loyalty. As other prominent citizens followed their example the municipalities were richly provided with useful and ornamental public works donated by the richer classes. Thus the municipal offices, being unsalaried, were a heavy drain upon the resources of their holders, but at the same time they offered almost the sole opportunity for gratifying the [pg 285]political ambitions of the population of the provinces. In addition to these civil officials, each community had its colleges of pontiffs and augurs.
The members of the curia were called decuriones, and were usually one hundred in number. They comprised those who had held some local magistracy, and others having the requisite property qualification who were enrolled directly (adlecti) in the council. The council supervised the work of the magistrates and really directed the municipal administration. As in early Rome, so in the municipalities the people were grouped in curiae, which were the voting units in the local assembly or comitia. This assembly elected the magistrates and had legislative powers corresponding to those of the Roman assemblies. However, in the course of the second century A. D. these legislative powers passed into the hands of the council, whose decrees became the sole form of municipal legislation.
The collegia. While the plebs of Rome and the municipalities alike had little opportunity for political activity they found a compensation in the social life of their guilds or colleges. These were associations of persons who had some common tie, such as a common trade or profession, a common worship, or the humble desire to secure for themselves a decent burial by mutual coöperation. Thus arose professional, religious, and funerary colleges. The organization of the colleges was modelled on that of the municipalities. They had their patrons, their presidents (magistri, or quinquennales), their quaestors, and their treasury sustained by initiation fees, monthly dues, fines, contributions, gifts and legacies. The membership was called plebs or populus. The chief factor in the life of the colleges was the social element and their most important gatherings were for the purpose of holding a common banquet. The professional colleges in no way corresponded to the modern trades unions; they attempted no collective bargaining with regard to wages, prices or working hours, although they did not altogether neglect the common interests of their profession.
Apparently until late republican times no restrictions had been placed upon the forming of such collegiate associations, but in 64 B. C. all such unions in Rome had been abolished because of the disorders occasioned by political clubs. In 58 B. C. complete freedom of association was restored, only to be revoked again by Julius Caesar who permitted only the old and reputable professional and religious [pg 286]colleges to remain in existence. Under Augustus a law was passed which regulated for the future the character, organization and activities of these associations. New colleges could only be established in Italy or the provinces if sanctioned by a decree of the Senate or edict of the princeps, and membership in an unauthorized college was a treasonable offence. Trajan authorized the unrestricted formation of funerary colleges (collegia tenuiorum) in Rome, and Septimius Severus extended this privilege to Italy and the provinces. Under Marcus Aurelius the colleges were recognized as juristic persons, with power to manumit slaves and receive legacies. Not only persons of free birth but also freedmen and slaves, and in many cases women as well as men, were freely admitted to membership in the colleges.
The decline of the municipalities. The prosperity of the empire depended upon the prosperity of the municipalities and it is in the latter that the first symptoms of internal decay are noticeable. These symptoms were economic decline and the consequent loss of local autonomy. The reasons for the economic decline are hard to trace. Among them we may perhaps place the ruin of many of the wealthier families by the requirements of office-holding, the withdrawal of others who were eligible for the imperial service with its salaried offices; overtaxation, bad management of local finances, and the disappearance of a free peasantry in the surrounding rural districts who had furnished a market for the manufacturers and merchants of the towns. The devastating wars of the third century with the resultant general paralysis of trade and commerce, plus the depopulation caused by plague and barbarian invasions, struck the municipalities a crushing blow from which they never recovered.
As early as the time of Trajan the imperial government found it necessary to appoint officials called curators to reorganize the financial conditions in one or more municipalities, sometimes those of a whole province. At first these were irregular officials, senators or equestrians, but by the third century they had become a fixture in municipal administration and were chosen from among the local decuriones. Another evidence of the same conditions is the change which took place in the position of the local magistracies. In the second century these offices were still an honor for which candidates voluntarily presented themselves, although there were unmistakable signs that in some districts they were coming to be regarded as a burden. In the third century the magistracies had become an obli[pg 287]gation resting upon the local senatorial order, and to which appointments were made by the curia. The decurionate also had become a burden which all who possessed a definite census rating must assume. To assure itself of its revenues in view of the declining prosperity of the communities the imperial government had hit upon the expedient of making the local decurions responsible for collecting the taxes, and consequently had been forced to make the decurionate an obligatory status. The curia and municipal magistracies had ended by becoming unwilling cogs in the imperial financial administration.
This loss of municipal independence was accompanied by the conversion of the voluntary professional colleges into compulsory public service corporations. From the opening of the principate the government had depended largely upon private initiative for the performance of many necessary services in connection with the provisioning of the city of Rome, a task which became increasingly complicated when the state undertook the distribution of oil under Septimius Severus, of bread in place of grain and of cheap wine under Aurelian. Therefore such colleges as the shipowners (navicularii), bakers (pistores), pork merchants (suarii), wine merchants (vinarii), and oil merchants (olerarii) received official encouragement. Their members individually assumed public contracts and in course of time came to receive certain privileges because it was recognized that they were performing services necessary to the public welfare. Marcus Aurelius, Severus and Caracalla were among the emperors who thus fostered the professional guilds. Gradually the idea developed that these services were public duties (munera) to which the several colleges were obligated, and hence Severus Alexander took the initiative in founding new colleges until all the city trades were thus organized. The same princeps appointed judicial representatives from each guild and placed them under the jurisdiction of definite courts. The colleges from this time onward operated under governmental supervision and really formed a part of the machinery of the administration, although they had not yet become compulsory and hereditary organizations.
The history of the colleges in the municipalities paralleled that of the Roman guilds, although it cannot be traced so clearly in detail. The best known of the municipal colleges are those of the artificers (fabri), the makers of rag cloths (centonarii), and the wood cutters (dendrophori). The organization of these colleges was everywhere [pg 288]encouraged because their members had the obligation of acting as a local fire brigade, but in the exercise of their trades they were not in the service of their respective communities.