hat if there
was trouble in Pompeii between the old inhabitants and the new colonists
then the same would have been true in Praeneste! As it was so close to
Rome, however, the trouble would have been much better known, and
certainly Cicero would not have lost a chance to bring the state of
affairs at Praeneste also into a comparison. Second, the great pains
Sulla took to rebuild the walls of Praeneste, to lay out a new forum,
and especially to make such an extensive enlargement and so many repairs
of the temple of Fortuna Primigenia, show that his efforts were not
entirely to please his new colonists, but just as much to try to defer
to the wishes and civic pride of the old settlers. Third, the fact that
a great many of the old inhabitants were left, despite the great
slaughter at the capture of the city, is shown by the frequent
recurrence in later inscriptions of the ancient names of the city, and
by the fact that within twenty years the property of the soldier
colonists had been bought up,[234] and the soldiers had died, or had
moved to town, or reenlisted for foreign service. Had there been much
trouble between the colonists and the old inhabitants, or had the
colonists taken all the offices, in either case they would not have been
so ready to part with their land, which was a sort of patent to
citizenship.

It is possible now to push the inquiry a point further. Dessau has
already seen[235] that in the time of Augustus members of the old
families were again in possession of many municipal offices, but he
thinks the Praenestines did not have as good municipal rights as the
colonists in the years following the establishment of the colony. There
are six inscriptions[236] which contain lists more or less fragmentary
of the magistrates of Praeneste, the duovirs, the aediles, and the
quaestors. Two of these inscriptions can be dated within a few years,
for they show the election of Germanicus and Drusus Caesar, and of Nero
and Drusus, the sons of Germanicus, to the quinquennial duovirate.[237]
Two others[81] are certainly pieces of the same fasti because of several
peculiarities,[239] and one other, a fragment, belongs to still another
calendar.[240] It will first be necessary to show that these
last-mentioned inscriptions can be referred to some time not much later
than the founding of the colony at Praeneste by Sulla, before any use
can be made of the names in the list to prove anything about the early
distribution of