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Beyond this boundary the adjacent properly Gallic territory as far as, and including, Ravenna belonged in a similar way as did Italy proper to the Roman alliance; the Senones, who had formerly settled there, were extirpated in the war of 471-2, and the several townships were connected with Rome, either as burgess-colonies, like Sena Gallica, or as allied towns, whether with Latin rights, like Ariminum, or with Italian rights, like Ravenna.
It cannot be shown that after the complete subjugation of Italy even a single Italian community exchanged its position as an ally for the Roman franchise; probably none after that date in reality acquired it Even the transition of individual Italians to the Roman franchise was confined almost solely to the case of magistrates of the Latin communities and, by special favour, of individual non-burgesses admitted to share it at the founding of burgess-colonies.
In 502, shortly after the expedition of Regulus to Africa, they amounted to 298,000 men capable of bearing arms; thirty years later, shortly before the commencement of the Hannibalic war , they had fallen off to 270,000, or about a tenth, and again twenty years after that, shortly before the end of the same war , to 214,000, or about a fourth; and a generation afterwards during which no extraordinary losses occurred, but the institution of the great burgess-colonies in the plain of northern Italy in particular occasioned a perceptible and exceptional increase the numbers of the burgesses had hardly again reached the point at which they stood at the commencement of this period.
It is probable that its germs may be traced to exceptional regulations for the great burgess-colonies, which were founded at the end of the sixth century; at least several, in themselves indifferent, formal differences between burgess-colonies and burgess municipia- tend to show that the new burgess-colony, which at that time practically took the place of the Latin, had originally a better position in state-law than the far older burgess- -municipium-, and the advantage doubtless can only have consisted in a municipal constitution approximating to the Latin, such as afterwards belonged to all burgess-colonies and burgess municipia-. The new organization is first distinctly demonstrable for the revolutionary colony of Capua; and it admits of no doubt that it was first fully applied, when all the hitherto sovereign towns of Italy had to be organized, in consequence of the Social war, as burgess- communities.
Now the centralization of the community was abandoned, partly through the admission of the half-burgess communities to the full franchise, partly through the accession of numerous more remote burgess-colonies to its ranks; but the older system of incorporation was not resumed with reference to the allied communities.
The communities of full burgesses that is, all the towns of the Cisalpine province and the burgess-colonies and burgess-municipia scattered in Transalpine Gaul and elsewhere were on an equal footing with the Italian, in so far as they administered their own affairs, and even exercised a certainly limited jurisdiction; while on the other hand the more important processes came before the Roman authorities competent to deal with them as a rule the governor of the province.
The Roman polity especially adhered to this view with its peculiar tenacious consistency; even in the sixth century the dependent communities of Italy were either, in order to their keeping their municipal constitution, constituted as formally sovereign states of non-burgesses, or, if they obtained the Roman franchise, were although not prevented from organizing themselves as collective bodies deprived of properly municipal rights, so that in all burgess-colonies and burgess municipia- even the administration of justice and the charge of buildings devolved on the Roman praetors and censors.
The communities of full burgesses that is, all the towns of the Cisalpine province and the burgess-colonies and burgess-municipia scattered in Transalpine Gaul and elsewhere were on an equal footing with the Italian, in so far as they administered their own affairs, and even exercised a certainly limited jurisdiction; while on the other hand the more important processes came before the Roman authorities competent to deal with them as a rule the governor of the province.
The Roman polity especially adhered to this view with its peculiar tenacious consistency; even in the sixth century the dependent communities of Italy were either, in order to their keeping their municipal constitution, constituted as formally sovereign states of non-burgesses, or, if they obtained the Roman franchise, were although not prevented from organizing themselves as collective bodies deprived of properly municipal rights, so that in all burgess-colonies and burgess municipia- even the administration of justice and the charge of buildings devolved on the Roman praetors and censors.
It cannot be shown that after the complete subjugation of Italy even a single Italian community exchanged its position as an ally for the Roman franchise; probably none after that date in reality acquired it Even the transition of individual Italians to the Roman franchise was confined almost solely to the case of magistrates of the Latin communities and, by special favour, of individual non-burgesses admitted to share it at the founding of burgess-colonies.
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