Clavdivs and the Primores Galliae

Extract

This old difficulty has recently received a new explanation from the pen of Dr. E. G. Hardy (Roman Laws and Charters, pp. 133 sqq.). Dr. Hardy believes—and his view has met with some acceptance—that the disability, under which these Gallic candidates for admission to the Senate laboured, was the want of a municipalis origo. Up to this time, he contends, only Romans who were members of a town of Roman or Latin rights were eligible for admission to the Senate. Now in the Tres Galliae there were practically no such towns: these Gallic chiefs possessed the ciuitas individually by special grant and not as members of any municipality. Hence the door of the curia was closed to them while it was open to Romans from Lugdunum or Vienna.