ProQuest Dissertations - Historia Antigua

also an augur), and C. Laetorius (Croton, 194).The large number of priests on thecommissions, given that there were only up to 28 priests on these colleges in Rome at anygiven time, is not surprising since, as Cicero noted, the coincidence of magistracies andpriesthoods was one of the strengths of the Roman state.In summary, all of the colleges of tresviri coloniae deducendae between 219 and169 BCE contained a very high number of military leaders, whether consuls, praetors,pro-magistrates, or legates. Nearly half of the colleges also had at least one former aedileas a member. The commissions for the small, citizen colonies also contained at least oneformer tribune of the plebs. Some commissioners were young, inexperienced men, forwhom founding the colony would have been a learning experience. Finally,approximately ten percent of the commissioners were also priests; this number roughlycorresponds to ratio of priests to senators in Rome at this time: 28 pontiffs, augurs, anddecimviri out of 300 senators. Thus, the significant factor in the overall selection ofcolonial commissioners seems to have been their military experience.19 Since we have no indication that this sort of priesthood was instituted in the colonies, and furthermore,since the expertise of these priests related directly to the consultation of the Sibylline Books in Rome, theskills/duties of these men as decimviri had no bearing on colonization. Thus, they are left aside here.20 Cic.Dom. 1.1.277