Honorary Titles for Cities in the Roman Empire

Roman colonies organised settlers and land under Roman civic institutions. Municipal charters set out offices and local obligations, while emperors separately granted fiscal privileges. In the Greek-speaking East, cities competed for honours connected with provincial imperial worship. Community names could record several of these relationships, including the emperor who founded or favoured the city.

A charter defined local government and the conduct of public business. Fiscal grants changed specified tax obligations. Hosting a provincial cult required a sanctuary, priesthood and ceremonies funded by the community and its patrons.

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Colonia: foundations and grants of colonial status

The title colonia identified a Roman colony. Many colonies were founded through the settlement of Roman citizens, including military veterans given land after service. A foundation could secure a strategic position and create a community with direct connections to Roman institutions.

Colonies had local magistrates and a council, the ordo decurionum, handling finances and civic duties. The colonial community included its surrounding territory. Roman and Latin colonies originated under different arrangements, and the rights of residents depended on the foundation and later grants.

Existing cities could also receive colonial status without being newly founded for a large body of veterans. The title’s prestige could itself make it desirable. Aulus Gellius, discussing the difference between colonies and municipia, records Hadrian’s surprise that communities with their own established arrangements sought colonial standing.

Concrete examples illustrate different foundations. Colonia Claudia Ara Agrippinensium, modern Cologne, commemorated Claudius and Agrippina in its name. Colonia Ulpia Traiana, near modern Xanten, carried the family and imperial names of Trajan. Augusta Emerita, modern Mérida, was founded in 25 BCE for veterans and became the provincial capital of Lusitania.

The ius Italicum was a specific grant treating provincial land in specified legal and fiscal respects as Italian land. The Digest distinguishes colonies possessing it from other colonies. Its jurists name Berytus and Tyre as holders and discuss Caesarea’s tax concessions separately.

Municipium and civitas: civic institutions and membership

A municipium was another form of civic organisation, with institutions defined by its charter. Municipal arrangements could confer Roman or Latin rights. Aulus Gellius contrasts the local customs of municipia with colonies organised on Roman models, reflecting the distinction understood in his period.

Civitas could mean citizenship, a body of citizens or a civic community with its territory. Provincial authorities worked through such communities and their local institutions. A community’s collective relationship with Rome could differ from the citizenship held by individual residents.

A civitas foederata possessed treaty arrangements with Rome, while civitas stipendiaria concerned tribute obligations. Grants of freedom or immunity created further specified privileges. The charter or grant identifies which rights and duties applied.

Local councils and magistrates handled communal business, including expenditure, public buildings and dealings with higher authorities. A civitas could possess civic institutions while many inhabitants lacked Roman citizenship. Conversely, individuals might hold Roman citizenship within a community whose collective status had a different history. Caracalla’s broad citizenship grant in 212 CE changed personal status across the empire without erasing every distinction between civic institutions, local traditions and fiscal obligations.

Metropolis: regional prominence and civic competition

Metropolis, Greek for “mother city,” originally described relationships with colonies. In the imperial East it also expressed regional prominence. Cities displayed the title in inscriptions and coins to assert their standing within a province.

Ephesus, Smyrna and Pergamum competed through cult honours, festivals and claims to antiquity. A city could call itself a metropolis, claim to be first in the province and count recognised imperial-cult honours within the same public title.

Such titles were displayed in public language, including inscriptions and coin legends. They associated the community with a place in the provincial order, while buildings and ceremonies made the claim visible.

In later ecclesiastical organisation, a metropolitan bishop held a recognised relationship with other bishops in the province. This use developed within the church’s institutional hierarchy.

Neokoros: temple guardianship and the imperial cult

Neokoros meant temple warden or guardian. It applied to care of a sanctuary and also became a civic distinction for cities hosting officially recognised provincial imperial cults. Local guardianship of an older deity’s temple and a provincial imperial neocorate belonged to different cult histories.

Cities advertised neocorates in inscriptions and on coins. Some counted more than one, reflecting separate recognised cult honours. The count expressed civic achievement within a history of grants and changes rather than simply the total number of temples in the town.

Hosting a provincial imperial cult required a sanctuary, priests and funded ceremonies. Communities and patrons paid for festivals, sacrifice and maintenance. Roman religion explains these connections between civic worship and imperial authority.

Tacitus records eleven Asian cities competing for a temple under Tiberius in AD 26. Their representatives presented claims about antiquity, resources and service to Rome. Pergamum already possessed an Augustan sanctuary; the new decision favoured Smyrna.

Ephesus’s Flavian imperial sanctuary dates to Domitian’s reign. The city also had an older association with Artemis and her temple. Public language connected Ephesus with both cult histories.

Augusta and other imperial names

Augusta commemorated imperial association within a city’s name. Other elements identified the community or its foundation. Legal status and fiscal privileges were established through separate grants and charters.

Augusta Emerita combines imperial association with emeriti, retired soldiers. Augusta Treverorum refers to the Treveri and belongs to modern Trier in Germany, not Brittany. Caesaraugusta, modern Zaragoza in Spain, likewise preserves an imperial association in its ancient name.

Other names incorporated imperial family or personal elements, such as Julia, Claudia, Flavia, Ulpia or Aelia. They could commemorate a founder, a refoundation, a status grant or patronage, depending on the city. In Colonia Ulpia Traiana, colonial standing and Trajanic commemoration appear together. The components complement one another: one concerns civic status, while others identify the connection advertised by the name.

Caput mundi and Nova Roma

Caput mundi, “head of the world,” expressed Rome’s claim to preeminence as the imperial centre. Its use belonged to descriptions of the city’s political standing and prestige.

Constantinople was associated with the idea of Nova Roma, “New Rome,” after Constantine established his imperial city there, dedicated in 330 CE. The description linked the new city with Rome and the emperor’s authority.

Imperial residence and ceremonial institutions supported Constantinople’s claim as New Rome. Older Rome retained its civic and religious prestige. Political imagery in Roman architecture examines the buildings that displayed imperial claims.