Municipal Administration In The Roman Empire

MUNICIPAL ADMINISTRATION IN THE ROMAN EMPIRE BY FRANK FROST ABBOTT Late Kennedy Professor of Latin y Princeton University AND ALLAN CHESTER JOHNSON Professor of Classics Princeton University PRINCETON PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS MCMXXVI PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN PREFACE The studies set forth in this volume were first planned by Professor Frank Frost Abbott in 1914. In collaboration with the present writer the work was carried on with many interruptions under the general editorship of Professor Abbott until his death, July 23, 1924. For his kindly criticisms and generous help I shall always remain pro foundly grateful. The municipal institutions of the Roman Empire contain in large measure the secret of the vitality and the decay of that ancient civilization which controlled the destinies of the world for a longer span than any imperial power whose history has yet been recorded. For this reason it has been our aim to trace the history of the rela tions of these municipalities to Rome, their differing status, the development of Roman policy . towards them, and the circumstances attending their degline, and there fore the decline of the empire. These rrirftters and certain others clearly relating to them are set ftrrth systematically in the Introduction. In this portion of the book we have made a study of the juridical and fiscal relations to Rome of communities of various classes, of the political organiza tion and financial systems of these communities, of the attempts which were made to combine them into larger political entities through the provincial assemblies, of the development of the municipal policy of Rome, and the decline of the municipality. The last chapter, on municipaldocuments, may serve as a technical introduction to Part n of the book, in which are brought together inscriptions and papyri that throw light on the relations which the municipalities bore to Rome. These documents have hitherto been so widely vi PREFACE scattered that it was thought advisable to gather them together in order that those interested in municipal institutions might be able to gain a first-hand compre hensive survey of the problems involved in their study. No collection of this kind exists and the information which such a corpus provides is definite and accurate. The lower limit of time for this collection has been set at the end of the third century, for the reason that most constitutions antedate the fourth century and the influences which determined the course of events are clearly discernible in the earlier period. Moreover, it would be impossible to deal fully with the Byzantine period without doubling the compass of the book. It has been the aim of the editors to include all in scriptions which furnish information of importance bearing upon the relations of Rome to her municipalities. Very fragmentary inscriptions and those which gave no information, known from documents already included, have been omitted. In the case of the documents from Egypt our choice has been limited more especially to the more important and representative papyri dealing with the towns and villages from the Roman occupation to the beginning of the Byzantine period. In general it should be stated for the purpose of de fining the work of the two collaborators, that Mr Abbott directed his attention to conditions in the West, and the present writer to those in the East. This means, practically, that the former is primarily responsible for the Latin inscriptions and for the commentaries on them, and the latter for the Greek and bilingual inscriptions, the papyri, and the commentaries on the documents of these three classes. The authorship of each chapter in the Introduction is indicated in the Table of Contents. The manuscript of Mr Abbotts portion was fortunately in final form, and is here published with slight editorial revision...