From the time of Sulla to the establishment of the monarchy, the expropriation of territory for discharged soldiers found its expression in great part in the change from Italian cities to colonies,[[230]] and of the colonies newly made by Sulla, Præneste was one. The misfortunes that befell Præneste, because she seemed doomed to be on the losing side in quarrels, were never more disastrously exemplified than in the punishment inflicted upon her by Sulla, because she had taken the side of Marius. Thousands of her citizens were killed (see [note 220]), her fortifications were thrown down, a great part of her territory was taken and given to Sulla's soldiers, who were the settlers of his new-made colony. At once the city government of Præneste changed. Instead of a senate, there was now a decuria (decuriones, ordo); instead of prætors, duovirs with judicial powers (iure dicundo), in short, the regular governmental officialdom for a Roman colony. The city offices were filled partly by the new colonists, and the new government which was forced upon her was so thoroughly established, that Præneste remained a colony as long as her history can be traced in the inscriptions. As has been said, in the time of Tiberius she got back an empty title, that of municipium, but it had been nearly forgotten again by Hadrian's time.
There are several unanswered questions which arise at this point. What was the distribution of offices in the colony after its foundation; what regulation, if any, was there as to the proportion of officials to the new make up of the population; and what and who were the quinquennial duovirs? From the proportionately large fragments of municipal fasti left from Præneste it will be possible to reach some conclusions that may be of future value.
The beginning of this question comes from a passage in Cicero,[[231]] which says that the Sullan colonists in Pompeii were preferred in the offices, and had a status of citizenship better than that of the old inhabitants of the city. Such a state of affairs might also seem natural in a colony which had just been deprived of one third of its land, and had had forced upon it as citizens a troop of soldiers who naturally would desire to keep the city offices as far as possible in their own control.[[232]] Dessau thinks that because this unequal state of citizenship was found in Pompeii, which was a colony of Sulla's, it must have been found also in Præneste, another of his colonies.[[233]] Before entering into the question of whether or not this can be proved, it will be well to mention three probable reasons why Dessau is wrong in his contention. The first, an argumentum ex silentio, is that if there was trouble in Pompeii between the old inhabitants and the new colonists then the same would have been true in Præneste! As it was so close to Rome, however, the trouble would have been much better known, and certainly Cicero would not have lost a chance to bring the state of affairs at Præneste also into a comparison. Second, the great pains Sulla took to rebuild the walls of Præneste, to lay out a new forum, and especially to make such an extensive enlargement and so many repairs of the temple of Fortuna Primigenia, show that his efforts were not entirely to please his new colonists, but just as much to try to defer to the wishes and civic pride of the old settlers. Third, the fact that a great many of the old inhabitants were left, despite the great slaughter at the capture of the city, is shown by the frequent recurrence in later inscriptions of the ancient names of the city, and by the fact that within twenty years the property of the soldier colonists had been bought up,[[234]] and the soldiers had died, or had moved to town, or reenlisted for foreign service. Had there been much trouble between the colonists and the old inhabitants, or had the colonists taken all the offices, in either case they would not have been so ready to part with their land, which was a sort of patent to citizenship.
It is possible now to push the inquiry a point further. Dessau has already seen[[235]] that in the time of Augustus members of the old families were again in possession of many municipal offices, but he thinks the Prænestines did not have as good municipal rights as the colonists in the years following the establishment of the colony. There are six inscriptions[[236]] which contain lists more or less fragmentary of the magistrates of Præneste, the duovirs, the ædiles, and the quæstors. Two of these inscriptions can be dated within a few years, for they show the election of Germanicus and Drusus Cæsar, and of Nero and Drusus, the sons of Germanicus, to the quinquennial duovirate.[[237]] Two others[[238]] are certainly pieces of the same fasti because of several peculiarities,[[239]] and one other, a fragment, belongs to still another calendar.[[240]] It will first be necessary to show that these last-mentioned inscriptions can be referred to some time not much later than the founding of the colony at Præneste by Sulla, before any use can be made of the names in the list to prove anything about the early distribution of officers in the colony. Two of these inscriptions[[238]] should be placed, I think, very early in the annals of the colony. They show a list of municipal officers whose names, with a single exception, which will be accounted for later, have only prænomen and nomen, a way of writing names which was common to the earlier inhabitants of Præneste, and which seems to have made itself felt here in the names of the colonists.[[241]] Again, from the fact that in the only place in the inscriptions where the quinquennialship is mentioned, it is the simple term, without the prefixed duoviri. In the later inscriptions from imperial times,[[237]] both forms are found, while in the year 31 A.D. in the municipal fasti of Nola[[242]] are found II vir(i) iter(um) q(uinquennales), and in 29 B.C. in the fasti from Venusia,[[243]] officials with the same title, duoviri quinquennales, which show that the officers of the year in which the census was taken were given both titles. Marquardt makes this a proof that the quinquennial title shows nothing more than a function of the regular duovir.[[244]] It is certain too that after the passage of the lex Iulia in 45 B.C., that the census was taken in the Italian towns at the same time as in Rome, and the reports sent to the censor in Rome.[[245]] This duty was performed by the duovirs with quinquennial power, also often called censorial power.[[246]] The inscriptions under consideration, then, would seem to date certainly before 49 B.C.
Another reason for placing these inscriptions in the very early days of the colony is derived from the use of names. In this list of officials[[247]] there is a duovir by the name of P. Cornelius, and another whose name is lost except for the cognomen, Dolabella, but he can be no other than a Cornelius, for this cognomen belongs to that family.[[248]] Early in the life of the colony, immediately after its settlement, during the repairs and rebuilding of the city's monuments,[[249]] while the soldiers from Sulla's army were the new citizens of the town, would be the time to look for men in the city offices whose election would have been due to Sulla, or would at least appear to have been a compliment to him. Sulla was one of the most famous of the family of the Cornelii, and men of the gens Cornelia might well have expected preferment during the early years of the colony. That such was the case is shown here by the recurrence of the name Cornelius in the list of municipal officers in two succeeding years. Now if the name "Cornelia" grew to be a name in great disfavor in Præneste, the reason would be plain enough. The destruction of the town, the loss of its ancient liberties, and the change in its government, are more than enough to assure hatred of the man who had been the cause of the disasters. And there is proof too that the Prænestines did keep a lasting dislike to the name "Cornelia." There are many inscriptions of Præneste which show the names (nomina) Ælia, Antonia, Aurelia, Claudia, Flavia, Iulia, Iunia, Marcia, Petronia, Valeria, among others, but besides the two Cornelii in this inscription under consideration, and one other[[250]] mentioned in the fragment above (see note 83), there are practically no people of that name found in Præneste,[[251]] and the name is frequent enough in other towns of the old Latin league. From these reasons, namely, the way in which only prænomina and nomina are used, the simple, earlier use of quinquennalis, and especially the appearance of the name Cornelius here, and never again until in the late empire, it follows that the names of the municipal officers of Præneste given in these inscriptions certainly date between 81 and 50 B.C.[[252]]
THE REGULATIONS ABOUT OFFICIALS.
The question now arises whether the new colonists had better rights legally than the old citizens, and whether they had the majority of votes and elected city officers from their own number. The inscriptions with which we have to deal are both fragments of lists of city officers, and in the longer of the two, one gives the officers for four years, the corresponding column for two years and part of a third. A Dolabella, who belongs to the gens Cornelia, as we have seen, heads the list as duovir. The ædile for the same year is a certain Rotanius.[[253]] This name is not found in the sepulchral inscriptions of the city of Rome, nor in the inscriptions of Præneste except in this one instance. This man is certainly one of the new colonists, and probably a soldier from North Italy.[[254]] Both the quæstors of the same year are given. They are M. Samiarius and Q. Flavius. Samiarius is one of the famous old names of Præneste.[[255]] In the same way, the duovirs of the next year, C. Messienus and P. Cornelius, belong, the one to Præneste, the other to the colonists,[[256]] and just such an arrangement is also found in the ædiles, Sex. Cæsius being a Prænestine[[257]], L. Nassius a colonist. Q. Caleius and C. Sertorius, the quæstors of the same year, do not appear in the inscriptions of Præneste except here, and it is impossible to say more than that Sertorius is a good Roman name, and Caleius a good north Italian one.[[258]] C. Salvius and T. Lucretius, duovirs for the next year, the recurrence of Salvius in another inscription,[[259]] L. Curtius and C. Vibius, the ædiles,—Statiolenus and C. Cassius, the quæstors, show the same phenomenon, for it seems quite possible from other inscriptional evidence to claim Salvius, Vibius,[[260]] and Statiolenus[[261]] as men from the old families of Præneste. The quinquennalis for the next year, M. Petronius, has a name too widely prevalent to allow any certainty as to his native place, but the nomen Petronia and Ptronia is an old name in Præneste.[[262]] In the second column of the inscription, although the majority of the names there seem to belong to the new colonists, as those in the first column do to the old settlers, there are two names, Q. Arrasidius and T. Apponius, which do not make for the argument either way.[[263]] In the smaller fragment there are but six names: M. Decumius and L. Ferlidius, C. Paccius and C. Ninn(ius), C. Albinius and Sex. Capivas, but from these one gets only good probabilities. The nomen Decumia is well attested in Præneste before the time of Sulla.[[264]] In fact the same name, M. Decumius, is among the old pigne inscriptions.[[265]] Paccia has been found this past year in Prænestine territory, and may well be an old Prænestine name, for the inscriptions of a family of the name Paccia have come to light at Gallicano.[[266]] Capivas is at least not a Roman name,[[267]] but from its scarcity in other places can as well be one of the names that are so frequent in Præneste, which show Etruscan or Sabine formation, and which prove that before Sulla's time the city had a great many inhabitants who had come from Etruria and from back in the Sabine mountains. Ninnius[[268]] is a name not found elsewhere in the Latian towns, but the name belonged to the nobility near Capua,[[269]] and is found also in Pompeii[[270]] and Puteoli.[[271]] It seems a fair supposition to make at the outset, as we have seen that various writers on Præneste have done, that the new colonists would try to keep the highest office to themselves, at any rate, particularly the duovirate. But a study of the names, as has been the case with the less important officers, fails even to bear this out.[[272]] These lists of municipal officers show a number of names that belong with certainty to the older families of Præneste, and thus warrant the statement that the colonists did not have better rights than the old settlers, and that not even in the duovirate, which held an effective check (maior potestas)[[273]] on the ædiles and quæstors, can the names of the new colonists be shown to outnumber or take the place of the old settlers.
There remains yet the question in regard to the men who filled the quinquennial office. We know that whether the officials of the municipal governments were prætors, ædiles, duovirs, or quattuorvirs, at intervals of five years their titles either were quinquennales,[[274]] or had that added to them, and that this title implied censorial duties.[[275]] It has also been shown that after 46 B.C. the lex Iulia compelled the census in the various Roman towns to be taken by the proper officers in the same year that it was done in Rome. This implies that the taking of the census had been so well established a custom that it was a long time before Rome itself had cared to enact a law which changed the year of census taking in those towns which had not of their own volition made their census contemporaneous with that in Rome.