Origo, incolae, municipes y civitas Romana a la luz de la Lex Irnitana

Abstract

In this paper we will analyze the relation between origo and civitas, in the Spanish Epigraphic Law, and especially in the Lex Irnitana, where we will not find origo but incolae. Origo arose many questions both for the relations between origo, domicilium and incolae, as for the more sociological than juridical connotation in the Republican Age, acquiring a technical meaning during the Classic Age, especially from Adriano. Origo as a concept is typified by its alterity and would be a legally irrelevant concept if individuals from a different origo were not confronted. In our opinion, when the origo left the city, settling down in a different one implied for the immigrant to observe the rights and obligations of his new city, participating in its munera, and might reach magistracies and town priests that being honourable compensated the financial charges that have to expend the new municipes. We can conclude that in the Lex Irnitana the allusion to the incolae refers to individuals from different origo settled in Irni, but their origo was not an obstacle to be under the town law as if they were municipes themselves, implying an assimilation of people attached previously to other towns –considered pilgrims until the Vespasianus’ decree- to the Irni inhabitants, which go further away than the Latin rights in Rome during the I century B.C..