ProQuest Dissertations - Historia Antigua

Chapter 2: Colonies and the Senatorial Impetus to ColonizeI. IntroductionMuch of the modern scholarship views Roman colonization in the middle Republic as amilitary or defensive phenomenon, and looks no further into the motivations of thecommissioners. 1The colonies certainly served the Roman state in a military capacity inSouth-Central Italy, where they encircled and divided the Samnite tribes from one anotheras well as protecting coastal communications, and in Northern Italy, where they guardedthe northern border and monitored the Ligurians and Gauls. The act of foundingcolonies, however, could and did have many personal and political attractions for theRoman magistrates. They were military outposts for the safety of the growing empire, butat the same time, they provided the individual commissioners with one or a combinationof benefits, including a closer tie to regions of personal concern, clientele, politicaladvancement, economic advantages, and a stage on which to pursue personal andprocedural differences with other magistrates. It was these benefits that created animpetus to colonize among the magistrates.The following chapter provides a history of the colonization efforts in South-Central and Northern Italy, along with notice of viritane distributions and other colonialcommissions for which the commissioners are known. This account provides anhistorical foundation for the rest of the chapters that follow. The second half of thechapter explains the diverse reasons why serving as a colonial commissioner wasattractive to the individual magistrates. The varying motivations and impetuses that1 See especially Salmon (1970).~ See Appendix 1 for the primary textual accounts for this history.53