Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 14, 2025
In 338 B.C., after the close of the Latin war, Praeneste and Tibur made either a special treaty with Rome, as seems most likely, or one in which the old status quo was reaffirmed. It is to be remembered too that in the year 216 B.C., after the heroic deeds of the Praenestine cohort at Casilinum, the inhabitants of Praeneste were offered Roman citizenship, and that they refused it.
There were dictators in Aricia, Lanuvium, Nomentum, and Tusculum, but no trace of a dictator in Praeneste. The first mention of a magistrate from Praeneste, a praetor, in 319 B.C, is due to a joke of the Roman dictator Papirius Cursor.
Praeneste was already a rich and prosperous community, when Rome was still fighting for a precarious existence. The rapid development, however, of the Latin towns, and the necessity of mutual protection and advancement soon brought Rome and Praeneste into a league with the other towns of Latium.
As a municipium, the rights of Praeneste were shared by only one other city in the league.
These men setting out from home too late, in consequence of the levy at Praeneste not being completed at the appointed day, and arriving at Casilinum before the defeat was known there, where they united themselves with other troops, Romans and allies, were proceeding thence in a tolerably large body, but the news of the battle at Cannae them back to Casilinum.
So whether Praeneste received Roman citizenship in 90 or in 89 B.C. the spirit of her past history makes it certain that she demanded a clause which gave specific rights to the old federated states, such as had always been in her treaty with Rome.
Another important road was outside the city wall, from one gate to the other, and took the slope on the south side of the city where the Via degli Arconi now runs. As far as excavations have proved up to this time, the oldest road out of Praeneste is that which is now the Via della Marcigliana, along which were found the very early tombs.
The great number of the old pigne inscriptions gives a better list of names of the citizens of the second century B.C. and earlier than can be found in any other Latin town. Praeneste also has more municipal fasti preserved than any other city, and this fact alone is sufficient reason for a study of municipal officers.
Excavations at the ruins which were once thought to be the curia of ancient Praeneste showed instead of a hemicycle, a straight wall built on remains of a more ancient construction of rectangular blocks of tufa with three layers of pavement 4-1/2 feet below the level of the ground, under which was a tomb of brick construction, and lower still a wall of opus quadratum of tufa, certainly none of the remains belonging to a curia.
There seems to be, however, very good reasons for saying that Praeneste never became a municipium in the strict legal sense of the word. It only salved the pride of the Praenestines, for it gave them a name which showed a former sovereign federated state, and not the name of a colony planted by the Romans. The cogency of this fourth reason will bear elaboration.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking