Every municipality was a Rome in miniature. It had its
forum and senate- house, its temples, theaters, and baths, its circus for racing,
and its amphitheater for gladiatorial combats. Most of the municipalities
enjoyed an abundant supply of water, and some had good sewer systems. The
larger towns had well-paved, though narrow, streets. Pompeii, a small place of
scarcely thirty thousand inhabitants, still exists to give us an idea of the
appearance of one of these ancient cities. And what we find at Pompeii was
repeated on a more splendid scale in hundreds of places from the Danube to the
Nile, from Britain to Arabia.
CITY GOVERNMENT
The municipalities of Roman origin copied the government
of Rome itself. Each city had a council, or senate, and a popular assembly
which chose the magistrates. These officials were generally rich men; they
received no salary, and in fact had to pay a large sum on entering office.
Local politics excited the keenest interest. Many of the inscriptions found on
the walls of Pompeii are election placards recommending particular candidates
for office. Women sometimes took part in political contests. Distributions of
grain, oil, and money were made to needy citizens, in imitation of the bad
Roman practice. There were public banquets, imposing festivals, wild-beast
hunts, and bloody contests of gladiators, like those at Rome.
SURVIVAL OF THE ROMAN MUNICIPAL SYSTEM
The busy, throbbing life in these countless centers of the
Roman world has long since been stilled. The cities themselves, in many
instances, have utterly disappeared. Yet the forms of municipal government,
together with the Roman idea of a free, self-governing city, never wholly died
out. Some of the most important cities which flourished in southern and western
Europe during the later Middle Ages preserved clear traces of their ancient
Roman origin.
