Tributary cities and tax-free cities

In provinces, though not in Italy, there were two kinds of allied cities in accordance with their tax relation with Rome: tributary cities and free cities. Tributary cities were allied cities that regularly paid fixed land taxes and other tributes and exactions to Rome.

Most provincial cities were tributary cities. Spain alone had 291 tributary cities at the beginning of the first century of our era. Free cities were the exception. In the entire Roman world, there were around two hundred free cities (of these, thirty-nine in Africa, and thirty-five in Asia). Freedom could be granted to a city by a treaty (foedus), a decree of the Senate, or a statute. Athens, Rhodes, and Marseilles were examples of free cities established by treaties. The Pisidian city of Termessos, in modern Turkey, was a free city established in 71 bce by plebiscite (lex Antonia de Termessibus). By contrast, the city of Stratonicea (modern Eski- hisar, Turkey) was established by a decree of the Senate (c. 81 bce). The Romans could change the rights of free cities, whether or not they had a treaty with Rome, when these cities were not loyal. For instance, Tyre, in modern Lebanon, the birthplace of the Roman jurist Ulpian (see D. 50.15.1), was a free city under the Republic, lost its privilege as a free city under Augustus, and later recovered it.

Further reading

Abbott, Frank Frost. A History and Description of Roman Political Institutions. 3rd ed. Boston, New York, Chicago, and London: Ginn and Company, 1911.

Abbot, Frank Frost, and Allan Chester Johnson. Municipal Administration in the Roman Empire.

Ando, Clifford. “The Administration of the Provinces.” A Companion to the Roman Empire, edited by David S. Potter, 177-192. Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell, 2006.

Barrandon, Nathalie and Francois Kirbihler. Administrer les provinces de la Republique romaine. Rennes: Presses Universitaires de Rennes, 2010.

Barrandon, Nathalie and Francois Kirbihler. Les gouverneurs et les provinciaux sous la Republique romaine. Rennes: Presses Universitaires de Rennes, 2011.

Berger, Adolf. Encyclopedic Dictionary of Roman Law. Philadelphia, PA: The American Philosophical Society, 1953; reprint 1980.

Bispham, Edward. From Asculum to Actium: The Municipalization of Italy from the Social War to Augustus. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2007. Coleman-Norton, Paul Robinson, and Frank Card Bourne. Ancient Roman Statutes. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, 1961.

Crawford, Michael H. Roman Statutes I. London: Institute of Classical Studies, 1996. d’Ors, Alvaro. La ley Flavia Municipal. Rome: Pontifical Lateran University, 1986. Edwards, Religions of the Constantinian Empire. Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press, 2015.

Everitt, Anthony. Augustus: The Life of Rome's First Emperor. New York: Random House Trade Paperbacks, reprint 2006.

Gibbon, Edward. The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. (1776--79). Edited by David P. Womersley. London and New York: Penguin Classics, abridged edition, 2001.

Goldsworthy, Adrian. Augustus: First Emperor of Rome. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2014.

Gonzalez, Julian. “The Lex Irnitana: A New Copy of the Flavian Municipal Law.” Journal of Roman Studies 76 (1986): 147-243.

Jolowicz, Herbert Felix, and Barry Nicholas. Historical Introduction to the Study of Roman Law. 3rd ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1972.

Kunkel, Wolfgang. An Introduction to Roman Legal and Constitutional History. 2nd ed. Translated by J. M. Kelly.

Kunkel, Wolfgang, and Roland Wittmann. Staatsordnung und Staatspraxis der romi­schen Republik II. Die Magistratur. Munich: Beck Verlag, 1995.

Lintott, Andrew. The Constitution of the Roman Republic. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1999.

Lintott, Andrew. Imperium Romanum: Politics and Administration. London and New York: Routledge, 1993.

Metzer, Ernest. “Agree to Disagree: Local Jurisdiction in the lex Irnitana.” In Judge and Jurists: Essays in Memory of Lord Rodger of Earlsferry, edited by Andrew Burrows, David Johnston, and Reinhard Zimmermann, 207-225. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2013.

Mommsen, Theodor. The History of Rome. 4 vols. (1854-56). Translated by William Purdie Dickson. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2010.

Mommsen, Theodor. The Provinces of the Roman Empire. 2 vols. Translated by William P. Dickson. London: Macmillan, 1909.

Mommsen, Theodor. Romisches Staatsrecht. 3 vols. 2nd ed. Leipzig: Verlag Von S. Hirzel, 1876-88.

Richardson, John. The Romans in Spain. Oxford: Blackwell, 1996.

Richardson, John. “Roman Law in the Provinces.” In The Cambridge Companion of Roman Law, edited by David Johnston, 45-58. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2015.

Richardson, John. “Provincial Admnistration.” In The Oxford Handbook of Roman Law and Society, 111-123, edited by Paul de Plessis, Clifford Ando, and Kaius Tuori. Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press, 2016.

Roselaar, Saskia T. “Local Administration.” In The Oxford Handbook of Roman Law and Society, 124-136, edited by Paul de Plessis, Clifford Ando, and Kaius Tuori. Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press, 2016.

Sherwin-White, Adrian Nicholas. The Roman Citizenship. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1973. Siecienski, A. Edward, ed. Constantine: Religious Faith and Imperial Policy. London,

New York: Routledge, 2017 (esp. chapter 2 on “The Significant of the Edict of Milan,” written by Noel Lenski).

Sirks, Boudewijn. “Public Law.” In The Cambridge Companion of Roman Law, edited by David Johnston, 343-349. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2015.

Swain, Simon. “Italy: From Augustus to Theodosius: Invention and Decline.” In The Oxford Illustrated History of Italy, edited by George Holmes, 1-27. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2001.

Syme, Ronald. The Roman Revolution, especially 313-524. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, reprint 2002.

Willens, Pierre Gaspard Hubert. Le Senat de la Republique romaine: Sa composition et ses attributions. 2 vols. Louvain: Peeters, 1878; reprint Aalen: Scientia Verlag, 1968.

Williamson, Callie. The Laws of the Roman People: Public Law in the Expansion and Decline of the Roman Republic. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2005.

Wolf, Joseph Georg. “Jurisdiction in Urso.” In Judge and Jurists: Essays in Memory of Lord Rodger of Earlsferry, edited by Andrew Burrows, David Johnston, and Reinhard Zimmermann, 307-323. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2013.

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