jus Latii

jus Latii, in the Roman Republic and the Empire, certain rights and privileges, amounting to qualified citizenship, of a person who was not a Roman citizen. The rights were originally held only by the Latins, or inhabitants of Latium (the region around Rome), but they were later granted to other areas subservient to Rome.

An essential part of the jus Latii was the right to enter into legal contract under Roman law (commercium) and the right to legal intermarriage (conubium). Upon the decline and depopulation of Latium after 300 bc the application of the jus Latii shifted to the Latin colonies, many of whose settlers had been recruited from the Roman citizenry. These colonies were autonomous communities subject to Rome in foreign policy and through which Rome occupied many of the strong points of Italy as it expanded. As Latins they formed an intermediate group between the Roman citizens and the Italian allies. The colonies also eventually became depopulated, however, and after 200 bc the jus Latii was granted mainly to foreign peoples that Rome had subjugated by military conquest. Examples of this can be found in its grant in 170 to the children of Roman soldiers and native women in the colony of Carteia in Spain and in 89 to residents of Transpadane Gaul. These fictive Latins adopted the municipal pattern, the language, and the law of Latins. Their demand for Roman citizenship quickly became a political issue in Rome and was granted in 49 by Julius Caesar and Augustus to many native communities in the western provinces, and the process went on until Vespasian gave it to all the organized communities of Spain. Later emperors extended it freely to other provinces of the Empire. The status became in practice an intermediate step in the advancement of native communities to Roman citizenship. Finally, the Edict of Caracalla (ad 212) granted Roman citizenship to almost all inhabitants of the Roman Empire, reducing the distinction between Latin right and Roman citizenship to a mere formality.