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On the Centuriation of Roman Britain. by HENRY CHARLES COOTE, Esq., F.S.A

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On the Centuriation of Roman Britain. by HENRY CHARLES COOTE, Esq., F.S.A 127 VIII.—On the Centuriation of Roman Britain. By HENRY CHARLES COOTE, Esq., F.S.A. Bead December 5th, 1867. THE civilization which Western Europe received at the hands of Rome was due in great part to the colonies planted by her in every subjected portion of it. It may, therefore, be neither trivial nor uninteresting to inquire whether that colonisation extended itself and its benefits to this country also. Throughout the history of Rome conquest preceded colonisation. The land of a conquered nation, if the Roman government insisted upon its right, became the absolute property of the Roman people. Belonging from that time to the State, it could be retained by the Government as public property (i. e. in fact and etymology the property of the people,) to be used for the support and relief of the finances, or it could, by an act of the Legislature, be granted and appropriated to private individuals, of course a portion of that people or their privileged allies. This latter course was constantly taken, for, as it was a leading idea at Rome to complete and perpetuate her conquests by the multiplication of Roman citizens and allies in the conquered countries, so this could be carried out effectually only by providing those transplanted citizens and allies with the means of a fixed and stable existence, in other words with settlements in land.a a " Ut numerus civium, quern multiplicare divus Augustus conabatur, haberet spatia in quse subsistere potuisset."—Hyginus in Lachman's edition of the Gromatici Veteres, 2 vols. 8vo. Berlin, 1848-1852, p. 113. [My subsequent references to the works of the various agrimensorial writers are to this edition, unless otherwise stated.] The consuls, in expostulating with the Latin colonies, laid down the same principle, " sed Eomanos inde oriundos, inde in colonias atque in bello agrum captum urbis augenda? causa missos." —Liv. xxvii.c. 9. The colonists also were the advanced guard of Eome, protecting her extended frontier. So Horace says, Sat. lib. ii. 1:— " Nam Venusinus arat finem sub utrumque colonus, Missus ad hoc, pulsis (vetus est ut fama) Sabellis, Quo ne per vacuum Romano incurreret hostis." Or, as Tacitus expresses it, " Colonia deducitur in agros captivos, subsidium adversus rebelles, et pro imbuendis sociis ad officia legum."—Ann. xii. 31. 128 On the Centuriation of Moman Britain. This resettlement of a country," as it in truth was, was conducted upon a plan and a system worthy of that nation of statesmen. In the concrete, colonisation meant the foundation of a new city with an allotment thereto as and in the name of territory, the latter to be legally subject to the municipal authority of that city, and to be divided and assigned to the colonists in proprietary grants. This was a colony—in other words a renewal and reproduction of the original city in a strange land,b or, in the words of Michelet, " une extension de la me"tropole." The aim of the Government being to deport a certain number of Romans, Latins, or Italians, the territory to be enjoyed by the colony would be an amount of land at least adequate to that numerical necessity. This would necessitate a previous survey, in order to obtain a knowledge of the acreage to be dealt with. The Roman Government would seem at all times to have possessed knowledge obtained in this way. Appian, in his Illyrica,0 speaks to measurements having been made by Roman engineers of that country so accurate as to correct previous but less exact opinions. The agrimensores refer to a measurement of the whole a " Causam autem dividendorum agrorum bella fecerunt. Captus enim ager ex hoste, victori militi veteranoque est assignatus, hostibus pulsis."—Siculus Flaccus, p. 155. b It is consequently merely an error to suppose that colonies were sent to those cities only which in later days are found in possession of this name. Whenever land {ager) was divisus assignatus (to use the words of Frontinus, lib. i. p. 2), there was by necessity a colony, because that land was territory, and Eomans, Latins, or Italians had received assignments of it under the express contract of settling upon them. This was the original meaning of the word colonia. Though in later days a meaning of municipal difference was attached to it, originally it had reference to the body of colonists, not to the city which they were to found, or to the territory which was to be assigned to it. The future city might be municipium, forum, prmfectura, conciliahulum (see LL. Mamilia, Eoscia, Peducea, Alliena, Fabia, in Lachman, p. 263, et seqq.) names at one time familiar to the Eoman system, and expressing differences in municipal organization, in privileges or obligations relatively to Eome, but all agreeing in the one fact that they were Eoman colonies. Afterwards, but much later, the term colonia was applied to the city itself, as expressing a municipal difference and prerogative, and civitas became the general name for all colonial cities which, however they might differ in some points, agreed in the circumstance of having a territory attached to them. " Civitates enim quarum conditiones alias sunt colonia? dicuntur, municipia, qusedam prsefecturse."—Sic. Flacc. p. 135. There is an interesting disputation in Aulus Gellius, xvi. 13, upon the differences between colonies and municipia. These differences, even in his day, were hard to catch, the historical rights and obligations upon which they had been founded having faded into oblivion. He says, " Sic adeo et municipia quid et quo jure sint, quantumque a colonia differant ignoramus." He adds that there was a general opinioa that a so-called colonia (or municipium having jus colonies) was greater or more respectable than an ordinary municipium. " Existimamusque meliore conditione esse colonias quam municipia." The Emperors granted jus colonial to cities which had never been colonies. c c. 1. On the Centuriation of Roman Britain. 129 Roman world, conducted under the orders of Augustus/ Theodosius the younger, in the fifteenth year of his reign, ordered "provincias orbis teme in longitudinem et latitudinem mensurari."" The technical name of a territory also was pertica, a word involving the meaning of measurement.0 Such being the object and general principle of Roman colonization, it was carried into practice by the following machinery. A law was passed—by the senate and people in republican times—in after- times by the Emperor alone—authorising the plantation in question, and defining all that was necessary in relation thereto. "Without such a law, called lex colonica, no colony could be despatched and established/ The details of such a law were manifold. Though no law of this nature is textually extant, it maybe possible, if some little pains be taken, to collect and restore its leading provisions. Such a synthesis I have attempted, and now offer. A lea: colonica enacted that a colony should be sent out. It appointed the officers who should carry this proceeding into execution. In the time of the re- public these were usually triumviri, who should act during a definite period judged sufficient for the purpose.' In later days a military officer seems to have been the functionary appointed by the Emperors/ The law determined the number of the colonists ; decreed the formation (consti- tutio) of a civitas or cheflieu; and settled the nature of its municipal govern- ment and its privileges in the face of Rome, whether it should be municipium, prefectures, or conciliabulum} Again, the law assigned to the colony its territory.8 It defined that territory en bloc, giving its dimensions and its confines.11 It fixed the breadth of the roads, ways, and lanes (limites) which should divide the allotted estates {centurice) from each other.1 It directed that the land of which the limites were composed should be taken out of the soil of the estate assigned, or that they should be inde- pendently provided for out of the territory.k a Liber Coloniarum, i. p. 242, and Latinus and Mysrontius, p. 348. b See the Itinerarium Antonini cited in Godefroye's Note to the Theod. Code, ii. pp. 353-4. c " Solum autem quodcunque colonise est adsignatum id universum pertica appellatur."—Frontinus, lib. ii. p. 26, and agrimensores passim. a See Livy and the Libb. Colon, passim. " Hi agri leges accipiunt ab his, qui veteranos deducunt, et ita propriam observationem eorum lex data prsestat."—Hyginus, p. 117. 6 Liv. xxxiv. 53. f Pp. 244, 253. e LL. Mamilia, Roscia, &c. pp. 263—266. h Hyg. p. 118. 1 Hyg. pp. Ill, 169, 175, 194. Also Lib. Colon, p. 212. k " In agris centuriatis excipitur limitum latitudo causa itineris."—Frontinus, ii. 58. " In quibusdam VOL. XLII. S 130 On the Centuriation of Homan JBritain. It fixed the acreage of the centuria or normal estate of the colony, and the amount thus fixed prevailed throughout the territory.* When the rules of Roman colonisation became fixed it was usual not to allot out centurice at a less dimen- sion than of 200 jugera. Occasionally the law provided that the centuria should be of 240 or 210 jugera? I should remark in this place that, the lex colonica making it absolutely imperative that the territory should be divided into square or rectangular centurice of the dimension enacted by it, there would be land left which could not undergo such a division as would yield these strict quantities. Under these circumstances, in order to obey the law in the letter at least, assignments of land were made in amounts of not less than 100 or 50 jugera. These were the only exceptions from the one fixed quantity of the full centuria which the law permitted to be made; but to distinguish them from the latter they were called, the one a pro centuria, the other a pro dimidia centuria.'' The lex colonica fixed the quantity of land (modus) to be granted to each colonist.d One colonist might take a centuria to himself.
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