ROMAN URBAN TOPOGRAPHY in Britain and the western Empire

granted him all his requests and recognized that he
prefers to follow not the usual course of action of
those who take part in public life, who for the sake of
immediate popularity lavish their munificence on
spectacles and distributions and prizes for the
games, but one by which he hopes to make the city
more handsome in the future . . . (SIG, 850)
The emperor prefers the long-term investment in public
buildings to the short-term benefits won from financing
public shows.
A well-known example of private munificence of the
better kind is the public library at Ephesus which was
begun early in the 2nd century in memory of his father Ti
Julius Celsus (who had been proconsul of Asia) by Ti
Julius Aquila, consul in 110, and which was completed by
his heirs. Here a very prominent local family is paying its
debt to its native city with no apparent motive save pure
benevolence, for they were already too prominent to be in
need of local popularity.
Other instructive examples of civic munificence which
clearly indicate civic pride are found among the monuments
and inscriptions of North Africa. I take two
instances from Djemila, the ancient Cuicul. Two inscriptions
of 169 record that C Julius Rescentianus had
promised a statue (ex liberalitate sua) costing HS 3000 (a
sum equalling two and a half years’ pay for a legionary
soldier), but had actually had it made at greater cost
(ampliata petunia) and had dedicated it in the city’s
basilica, the Basilica Julia, which he had himself built at
his own expense (CIL, 8, 8318). Nearby stands the
‘Market of Cosinius’, outside which a pair of statue bases
immortalize two brothers, the Cosinii, both of them
prominent civic figures; one inscription tells us that when
the people of Cuicul demanded a statue of one of the
brothers the city council agreed to erect it; but C Cosinius
Maximus himself undertook the cost of his statue and
dedicated it (AE, 1916, 33). The other base is dedicated to
his more prominent brother, Lucius; it records that when
the people and council had decided to set up a statue of
Lucius because of his generosity, his brother Caius
undertook the cost (AE, 1916, 34). The market itself, an
enclosed precinct, was erected by Lucius at a cost of HS
30,000 (AE, 1916, 35, 36). When we consider that a year’s
pay for a legionary in the 2nd century was HS 1200 and
that there were compulsory payments of around HS 2000
for election to civic office, these additional acts of
munificence are put in proper perspective. This is also the
moment to recall that the Digest (SO. 12.1) lays down that
promises by individuals to construct a public work
become binding and enforceable if the promise is made in
return for an honor, or once construction has begun.
It happens that we are particularly well informed about
civic munificence beyond the line of duty in North Africa
because of the preservation there of numerous inscriptions,
and because local custom dictated that details of cost
should be recorded. But although in the western provinces
it was not the custom to record such detail, we have several
examples which show that the same obligations were felt.
At Feurs, the capital of the Segusiavi in central Gaul, for
instance, we have a splendidly informative inscription
recording a gift there in Claudian times from the recently
enfranchized Roman citizen Ti Claudius Capito who
rebuilt in stone the city’s theatre which Lupus son of
35
Frere: Civic Pride: a factor in Roman town planning
Anthus had originally built in wood (CIL, 13, 1642 = ILS
5039). What an interesting excavation there would be, if
only this theatre could be located. And at Bordeaux we
have the record of a bequest by a local magistrate of HS
2,000,000 — almost a year’s salary for four cohorts of
legionaries — for the construction of an aqueduct (CIL,
13, 596-600).
So far I have been considering what might be classified
as the Pride of citizens in their cities and the voluntary
expenditures which they were prepared to undertake in its
expression. These could take extremely diverse forms. We
may recall Lucilius Gamala at Ostia (CIL, 14, 375 = ILS
6147) who, in addition to restoring four temples, paid for
the metalling of a street and presented a marble tribunal to
the forum. Elsewhere men gave sundials or water-clocks
to their cities (eg CIL, 12, 2322 = ILS 5624), in one case
together with a slave to look after it. A pair of North
African aediles presented lead pipes and a bronze stopcock
for a fountain (ILS 5776), and at Brough-on-
Humber we recall the well-known gift of a stage-building
(RIB 707).
But there is another aspect of Civic Pride, namely the
pride of cities in themselves. There are several passages in
the Digest which are of interest here. One (50.10.3) lays it
down that no name might be inscribed on a public
building except that of the emperor or of the person at
whose cost it was erected; another (50.10.7) ensures that if
private persons contributed to buildings constructed at
public cost, their names might be inscribed only to record
the sum which they contributed. And finally (50.10.3) it is
laid down that although new public works might be
constructed at private cost without the sanction of the
emperor, no new work might be built at public expense
without the emperor’s consent.
As a rule the erection of public buildings, such as the
forum and the main temples, was the responsibility of the
city itself, and these buildings often exhibit evidence of
communal civic pride by their size, Roman characteristics,
or decoration. At Wroxeter this is illustrated by the
fine inscription over the entrance to the forum.
Monumental arches, although sometimes erected by
private generosity, could also express this communal
pride in achievement. The arch at Cillium in North Africa
(CIL, 8, 210 = ILS 5570) was originally built by Q
Manlius Receptus: ‘after other benefactions, with his
usual liberality he built this arch carrying the insignia of
the colony’; and 100 years later another inscription was
added to record that ‘the ornamenta libertatis (or titles of
self-government) were restored together with the ancient
insignia of the city’. The arch left the approaching
traveller in no doubt of the status of the city he was
entering.
What help is all this to us in Roman Britain, where this
aspect of our epigraphic record is so deficient? We can
think of the forum at Verulamium, dedicated to the
emperor Titus, a vast structure covering almost 5 acres
(2.02 ha) and carrying an inscription which seems to
suggest that it was the city which built it — although in
this case we can be fairly confident, from what Tacitus
tells us of Agricola’s contemporary policy (Agricola 21),
that a government subsidy lightened the burden. At the
time of erection it was certainly the largest building in
Roman Britain. The position of the 3rd-century
monumental arches at the same city, which marked the