33 



COLONY. 



COLONY. 



stones without any cement ; they were also well versed in agriculture 

 and hydraulics, and several of the earliest drains and canals in the 

 Delta of the Po are attributed to them. They subjected, but at the 

 same time necessarily civilised, the people among whom they settled. 

 Their colonies seem to have formed independent communities, though 

 allied by a kind of federation. The Etruscans also founded colonies 

 in the Picenum, such as Hatria [Aim, in GEOG. Div.], and Cupra 

 Montana and Cupra Maritima. They took from the Ligures the 

 country around the gulf now called Delia Spezia, and founded the 

 city of Luna. They likewise sent colonies to the islands of Elba and 

 Corsica, for the Etruscans were a commercial as well as an agricultural 

 people ; they navigated the sea, and in the sixth century before Christ 

 they defeated the Phocseans, and drove them out of Corsica. The 

 Etruscans civilised Italy by means of their colonies ; but, unlike Rome, 

 they did not keep them united under a central power. 



The Sabini, an agricultural and pastoral people, living in a moun- 

 tainous country, sent colonies in very remote times to other parts of 

 Italy. It was their custom, after the lapse of a certain number of 

 years, to celebrate solemn sacrifices in the spring season, and to con- 

 secrate to the gods a number of young men, who were to quit then- 

 native land, and proceed under the auspices of Heaven to seek a new 

 country. In this manner the Piceni and the Samnites are said to have 

 been colonies of the Sabini. The Samnites in their turn sent out 

 other colonies, and the Lucanians were one of these. The Samnites 

 as well as the Sabini were entirely given to agricultural pursuits. 



Rome, in the earliest ages of the republic, adopted the system of 

 sending out colonies to the conquered countries. But the Roman 

 colonies were different from those of most other people, inasmuch as 

 they remained strictly subject to the mother country, whose authority 

 they were the means of enforcing upon the conquered nations. They 

 were, in fact, like so many garrisons or outposts of Rome. Servius 

 (/En. i. 12) gives the following definitions of a colony, taken from 

 much older authorities : " A colony is a society of men led in one 

 body to a fixed place, furnished with dwellings given to them under 

 certain conditions and regulations." Again, " Colonia is so called a 

 colendo ; it consists of a portion of citizens or confederates sent out to 

 form a community elsewhere by a decree of their state, or with the 

 general consent of the people from whom they are departed. Those 

 win i leave without such a consent, but in consequence of civil dis- 

 sensions, are not colonies." The notion of a Roman colony seems to be 

 this : the colonists occupied a city already existing ; and this, with 

 perhaps one exception or two, was the general character of the Roman 

 colonies in Italy Proper. When the Romans afterwards extended 

 their conquest* into countries where there were no regular towns, or 

 where the population being fierce and hostile, the Roman settlers must 

 be ever on their guard against them, they built new towns in some 

 favourable position. Such was the case in several parts of Gaul, Ger- 

 many, Dacia, &c. But the Roman colonies in Italy consisted of 

 Roman citizens, who were sent as settlers to fortified towns taken hi 

 war, with land assigned to them at the rate of two jugera of arable 

 land r plantation for each man, besides the right of pasture on the 

 public or common land. The old inhabitants were not ejected, or dis- 

 possessed of all then- property ; the general rule was, that one-third of 

 the territory of the town was confiscated and distributed among the 

 colonist*, and the rest was left to the former owners, probably subject 

 to some charges in the shape of taxes or services. The colonists con- 

 stituted the /ijjlu of the place ; they alone enjoyed political rights 

 and managed all public offices, the old inhabitants being considered as 

 the plebs. The ownership of the publicum or public property, in- 

 cluding the pasture land, was probably also vested in the new settlers. 

 It is natural to suppose that for some generations at least, no great 

 sympathy existed between the old and the new inhabitants, and hence 

 we frequently hear of revolts of the colonies, which means, not of the 

 colonists against the mother city, but of the old inhabitants, who rose 

 upon and expelled the colonists. But these events generally ended by 

 a second conquest of the place by Roman troops, when the old inhabit- 

 ants were either put to the sword or sold as slaves, or, under more 

 favourable circumstances, lost at least another third of their property. 

 In later times, iluring the civil wars of Rome, new colonies were sent 

 by the prevailing party to occupy the place of the former om 

 the. uliler culiiiiiHta were then dis]><wsc>ed of their property, cither 

 wholly or in part, just as they had dispossessed the original" inhabit- 

 ants. Hence the saying, " Veteres migrate coloni." Sometimes 

 colonies, especially at a great distance from Rome, having dwindled 

 away, or lieing in danger from the neighbouring populations, asked for 

 a reinforcement, when a fresh colony was sent, to whom the old 

 colonists gave up one-third of their property. Each of the older 

 colonies, it is observed by Gellius (xvi. 13), was a Rome in miniature ; 

 it had its senators called Decuriones, its Duumviri, ^Ediles, Censores, 

 Sacerdotes, Augurs, &c. 



A distinction must here be made between the Roman colonies and 



the Latin colonies. The former had all or nearly all the rights of the 



citi/ena of Rome, although Sigonius and some others pretend that they 



had not the jus suffragii; and yet, in various passages of L ivy and 



. colonists are styled cives and Romx censi. The Latin colonies 



' t the jus Quiritiuin, but only the jus Latii. All those, however, 



who filled magistrates' offices in Latin colonies became Roman citizens. 



Such was the case with Tibur, Prseneste, ic. The towns of Trans- 



ABIS ASD SCI. DIV. VOL. III. 



padanc Gaul, as a reward for their fidelity to Rome, obtained the rank 

 of Latin colonies without any colonists being sent to them. 



There were also military colonies, which consisted of soldiers, to 

 whom land was given instead of pay and provisions, as a resting-place 

 after their campaigns. Sulla appears to have been the founder of 

 these, and Ciesar and Augustus added greatly to their number. These 

 colonies are distinguished by having military ensigns on their coins, 

 while the Colonia; Togatse, or citizen colonies, have a plough on theirs. 

 (Heinecc. ' Antiqu. Roman. Syntagma.') The coins of some colonies 

 have both marks, which means that the original colony consisted of 

 citizens, after which a second was sent, composed of military. In, 

 Tacitus (' AnnaL' i.) the veterans complain that, after their long 

 service, they were rewarded only with uncultivated lands, situated in 

 the neighbourhood of the enemies of the empire. 



The system of colonies adopted by Rome had a double political 

 object, to secure the conquered countries, and to satisfy in part the 

 claims of its own poorer citizens, and to get rid of turbulent characters. 

 The importance of the Roman colonies to the empire is well expressed 

 by Cicero, who calls them " propugnacula imperil et specula populi 

 Romani." Such they doubtless were, and at the same time they were 

 the germ of the civilisation of Northern and Western Europe. A 

 nation of civilised conquerors, whatever evils it may inflict to gratify 

 its own cupidity, confers on the conquered people unintentionally still 

 greater benefits. By their colonies in Spam, Gaul, on the banks of the 

 Rhine, and in Britain, the Romans established their language and their 

 system of administration. The imprint of their empire is indelibly 

 fixed on the existing nations of Europe. 



The difference between Colonia and Municipium is, that the latter 

 was a town of which the inhabitants, being friendly to Rome, were 

 left in undisturbed possession of their property and their local laws 

 and political rights, and obtained moreover the Roman citizenship, 

 either with or without the right of suffrage ; for the were several 

 descriptions of Municipia. [MumciPluM.] The colonies, on the con- 

 trary, were all governed according to the Roman laws. The municipia 

 were foreign limbs engrafted on the Roman stock, while the colonies 

 were branches of that stock transported to a foreign soil. 



Under the later Roman emperors, the difference between colonia 

 and municipia became obliterated, and all were governed alike accord- 

 ing to the Roman law, and a uniform system of administration. 

 Augustus gave the right of Roman citizenship to all Italy. Antoninus 

 Caracalla bestowed it upon all freemen, subjects of the empire. (For 

 the Roman colonies, see Niebuhr, vol. ii. ; Manutius, ' de Civitate 

 Romana ; ' Sigonius, ' de Ant. Jure Ital. ; ' Hemeccius, ' Syntagma,' &c.) 



The northern tribes who overthrew the western empire did not 

 found colonies ; they overran or conquered whole provinces, and esta- 

 blished new states and kingdoms. The same may be said of the Saracen 

 conquests in Asia and Africa. But, after a lapse of several centuries, 

 when Europe had resumed a more settled form, the system of coloni- 

 sation was revived by three maritime Italian republics, Pisa, Genoa, 

 and Venice. Their first settlements on the coasts of the Levant and 

 Egypt were mercantile factories, which the insecurity of the country 

 soon induced them to convert into forts with garrisons, in short, into 

 real colonies. The Genoese established colonies at Famagosta in Cyprus ; 

 at Pera and Galata, opposite to Constantinople ; at Caffa in the Crimea, 

 founded in 1266. They also acquired possession of a considerable 

 extent of coast in that peninsula, forming a district subject to Genoa 

 under the name of Gazaria. Another tract, on the coast of Little 

 Tartary, called Gozia, was also subject to the Genoese, who had then 

 the colony of Cembalo. In the Palus Mjeotis they had the colony of 

 La Tana, now Azof. On the south coast of the Euxine they possessed 

 Samastro or Amastri. They had also a factory with franchises and 

 their own magistrates at Trebizond, as well as at Sebastopolis. These 

 colonies were governed by consuls sent from Genoa, and the order and 

 justice of their administration have been much extolled. In the 

 archives of St. George, at Genoa, there' is a valuable unpublished manu- 

 script containing the whole colonial legislation of the Genoese in the 

 middle ages. 



The Pisans, having taken Sardinia from the Moors, sent colonies to 

 Cagliari and other places. Their settlements in the Levant were mere 

 commercial factories. 



The Venetians established colonies in the Ionian Islands, Candia, 

 and Cyprus. Their system resembled that of Rome : they ruled, by 

 means of their colonies and garrisons, over the people of those islands, 

 whom they left in possession of their municipal laws and franchises. 

 These were not like the settlements of the Genoese, merely commercial 

 establishments they were for conquest and dominion ; in fact, Candia 

 and Cyprus were styled kingdoms subject to the republic. The 

 Venetians had also at one time factories and garrisons on various 

 points of the coasts of the Levant, but they lost them in the Morea, 

 Kuboca, Syria, and the Euxine, either through the Genoese, or after- 

 wards by the arms of the Ottomans. We can hardly number among 

 their colonies the few strongholds they once possessed on the coast of 

 Albania, such as Butrinto, Prevesa, Parga, &c., any more than those 

 possessed by the Spaniards and Portuguese on the coast of Barbary, 

 Oran, Melilla, Ceuta,&c. They were merely forts with small garrisons, 

 with no land attached to them. The name used in the Mediterranean 

 for such places is presidii, and they are often used as prisons for 

 criminals. 



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