The Sullan colony of Pompeii and the so-called lex Cornelia de civitate adimenda

Abstract

This paper focuses on the institutions of Pompeii in the decades after the Social war. Epigraphic and literary sources suggest that the Pompeians became municipes during the Eighties of the first century BCE, but were deprived of Roman citizenship (like the Arretini and the inhabitants of other municipia) a few years later, following Sulla’s victory and the so-called lex Cornelia de civitate adimenda; then the colony of Sullan veterans Cornelia Veneria Pompeianorum was founded in the territory of the indigenous community. Cicero’s speech pro Sulla indicates that in 62 BCE the old Pompeians had already regained Roman citizenship (presumably during the censorship of 70-69) and had been admitted within the colony: nevertheless they still faced discrimination in suffragia (elections) and ambulatio (which in this context probably means “passage through country roads”).