Devolution

The government of cities everywhere was based on a constitution. In the German provinces, self-governing cities were of three types: coloniae, municipia and dvitas capitals. A cohnia was made up of Roman citizens who annually elected senior and junior magistrates with various responsibilities. The two senior magistrates, duoviri, supervised the others and oversaw judicial matters. Two junior magistrates, aediies, were in charge of public works, and two further ones, quaestores, were responsible for financial affairs. The town council, ordo, was composed of 100 local senators or deruriones. In veteran colonics like Cologne, some of the earliest magistrates recorded were Roman citizens of Italian birth who retired here from the legions, but it is certain that others were members of the Ubian elite, resulting in a mixed group of magistrates. In Avenches, on the other hand, the names of the magistrates are native, suggesting that legionary veterans were not settled here. In a ntunkipiunt, of which only very few examples are known in the German provinces (Rottweil, Voorburg-Arentsbuig, Nijmegen and much later Mainz), the administration resembled that of a cotonia. The difference was that a munictpium had a greater proportion of non-Roman inhabitants than a colony, and these had Latin rather than Roman rights. The foundation charter included native laws and customs as well. Finally, the dvitas capital was predominantly made up of people without Roman citizenship, the leading members of whom served as magistrates along the same lines as those in a colony.

In general, those who acted as magistrates in local government had to be wealthy, since much of the public works and maintenance of the dvitates was paid for by them. Prerequisites for becoming a magistrate were land ownership and personal wealth of at least 100,000 sesterces. Any shortfall In the tax revenues assessed by the state had to be topped up by the duoviri, but at least in the first and second centuries the financial and social benefits of this post probably outweighed any potential danger of this kind. Although normally only the elite of the dvitas could take on the responsibility of local government, there were exceptions, and in the third century in Nijmegen and Trier we know of traders and merchants serving as magistrates at a time when businessmen could have accumulated enough wealth to do so. The reasons for taking on the task of magistrate are threefold. Firstly, the native elites by co-operating with the Roman government maintained their position of prominence in society. The old patron-client system of the Iron Age, in which the aristocratic families distributed wealth and gifts to other leading tribal members and kin-groups to increase their status, was retained, only now the elite was spending fortunes on public displays of wealth in the community. Secondly, panicipation in local government meant that some degree of influence could be exerted upon matters pertaining to the interests of the tribe without leaving government solely to the Roman state. Thirdly, non-Roman magistrates serving in munUipia and duiias capitals were awarded Roman citizenship upon termination of their period of office, a powerful incentive to seek out this distinction.

Apart from the coloniae, munUipia and civilas capitals, vici existed throughout the provinces, and they took on many forms from villages to fully-fledged towns ranging in size from anywhere between 10-15 acres (4-6ha) {Olten, Basel) to around 250 acres (lOOha) (Strasbourg). These small towns named in ancient sources are not always referred to specifically as vUi. Of the many small towns in the Franche-Comte region in Sequanian territory, for example, only one, Villards-D’H6ria, is attested as a pUus in an inscription. Districts within a city were referred to as uUi; we know of a incus Lucretius in Cologne and a ptcus Augustana in Heddemheim, for example, but cannot identify the location of either. It is generally thought that the vici were not self-governing, but some form of local administration certainly existed. A to rotor or financial commissioner, for example, is known from the vicus at Mainz, and sometimes votive dedications were made by the inhabitants (ykani) of a vicus as a corporate body. In some cases, even a civitas capital could be a vicus, as is the case with all the main towns in the Agri Decumates (Wiesbaden, Heddemheim, Dieburg, Ladenburg, Baden-Baden, Wimpfen, Pforzheim, Rottenburg) and those in the west-bank civitates of the Triboci (Brumath), Nemetes (Speyer) and Vangiones (Worms). These vici certainly had administrative tasks for the whole civitas, and were in possession of a complete set of magistrates. The pagi also existed as political entities with some degree of administration. Both vici and pagi, however, were subordinate to the civitas capital, unless, of course, the vicus was the civitas capital. The inhabitants of the vicus at Ziilpich (vicani Tolbiacenses), for example, were under the jurisdiction of the provincial capital at Cologne. Even Mainz, the capital of Germania Superior, was nothing more than a vicus in the legal sense until the end of the third century when it became a civitas capital, and later in the fourth century a munkipium. Likewise, the large civilian settlement outside the legionary base at Strasbourg legally remained a vUus until the civitas capital of the Triboci was transferred from Brumath to Strasbourg possibly in the early third century.

The political organisation of government and magisterial offices is also reflected in the structure of cult communities. Cults were organised on various levels, from the level of the Roman state to that of small, local groups. The imperial cult of Rome and Augustus, in which the veneration of the state and the emperor was inextricably interwoven, was organised on state level with directives for its establishment coming from the central Roman government. This cult in the Gallic and Germanic provinces operated on a provincial, pan-tribal scale, the sanctuary of Rome and Augustus for the Tres Calliae being established in Lyon and that for the German provinces in Cologne. Priests were drawn from the native aristocracy. Cults of syncretised native and Roman gods were organised on the civitas and pagus levels. The men who held priestly office for any of these cults were members of the tribal elite who also held important administrative positions in the civitas. Furthermore, just as the vici were under the political jurisdiction of the civitas capitals, the religious administration of small, local cult communities in vki and in the countryside near vki was in the hands of priests of public cults on pagus or civitas levels who performed religious rituals at the local sanctuaries. Moreover, these cult communities were managed on a local level by curiae, colleges of community groups and kin-groups.