ted by the Romans.[228] The cogency of this fourth
reason will bear elaboration. Praeneste would never have asked for a
return to the name municipium if it had not meant something. At the very
best she could not have been a real municipium with Roman citizenship
longer than seven years, 89 to 82 B.C., and that at a very unsettled
time, nor would an enforced taking of the status of a municipium, not to
mention the ridiculously short period which it would have lasted, have
been anything to look back to with such pride that the inhabitants would
ask the emperor Tiberius for it again. What they did ask for was the
name municipium as they used and understood it, for it meant to them
everything or anything but colonia.

Let us now sum up the municipal history of Praeneste down to 82 B.C.
when she was made a Roman colony by Sulla. Praeneste, from the earliest
times, like Rome, Tusculum, and Aricia, was one of the chief cities in
the territory known as Ancient Latium. Like these other cities,
Praeneste made herself head of a small league,[229] but unlike the
others, offers nothing but comparative probability that she was ever
ruled by kings or dictators. So of prime importance not only in the
study of the municipal officers of Praeneste, but also in the question
of Praeneste's relationship to Rome, is the fact that the evidence from
first to last is for praetors as the chief executive officers of the
Praenestine state (respublica), with their regular attendant officers,
aediles and quaestors; all of whom probably stood for office in the
regular succession (cursus honorum). Above these officers was a senate,
an administrative or advisory body. But although Praeneste took Roman
citizenship either in 90 or 89 B.C.,[56] it seems most likely that she
was not legally termed a municipium, but that she came in under some
special clause, or with some particular understanding, whereby she kept
her autonomy, at least in name. Praeneste certainly considered herself a
federate city, on the old terms of equality with Rome, she demanded and
partially retained control of her own land, and preserved her freedom
from Rome in the matter of city elections and magistrates.

PRAENESTE AS A COLONY.

From the time of Sulla to the establishment of the monarchy, the
expropriation of territory for discharged soldiers found its
expression in great part in the change from Italian cities to
colonies,[230] and of the colonies newly made by Sulla, Praenes