ProQuest Dissertations - Historia Antigua

a limited number of the priests in Rome, let alone enough pontiffs or augurs or both totravel in an advisory capacity to the colonies.If the commissioners appointed the colonial priests after the enrolment of thecolonists but before the dilectus, then the difficulties arising from a shortage of Romanpriests on the colonial commissions are solved. This applies specifically to the priests forthe Latin and large citizen colonies, which had their own civic and religious institutions.The new, colonial pontifices and augures would have up to two years to study the lawsand formulae contained in the records kept by their Roman namesakes. They could directthe commissioners in the rituals required for the foundation of their colony; a Romanpriest would be unnecessary, especially for Latin colonies, since by definition the body ofcolonists would no longer be Roman. Nonetheless, the rituals would be completed inkeeping with the need for religious orthopraxy. This scenario, while conjectural, suggeststhat the religious institutions of a colony were not strictly controlled by the Roman state,but rather were the responsibility of the commissioners, but also more directly of thecolonists themselves.To summarize: positing the direct imposition of a Roman model for the calendar,legal and religious practices, and authority structure of the Latin and Roman coloniespresents some challenges. The points of contact between the Roman state and foundingthe colonies were the colonial commissioners, who were operating from an ad hoccolonial law and their own experience as magistrates and priests. These three men, alone,rarely had the direct political or religious experience to form every aspect of the temporal,legal, and religious institutions of a colony. It is more likely that they instituted the130