'Foedus, Ius Latii, Civitas': per una revisione del concetto di latinizzazione fittizia in Transpadana fra l'89 e il 49 a.C.

In an important monograph dated 1979 (Foedus, ius Latii, civitas. Aspetti costituzionali della romanizzazione in Transpadana, Padova 1979) Giorgio Luraschi, innovating previous studies on the subject, argued that in Transpadana the granting of latinitas of 89 BC. after lex Pompeia de Transpadanis would not lead to any urban and architectural innovations nor to any land surveying rearrangements in rural areas, but only to the attribution of the title of colony to the preexisting urban realities. Hence the expression ‘fictional colonization’, which from that moment entered with full rights the jargon of ancient history and Roman public law studies. However some archaeological discoveries of recent years and especially the recent publication of a new form of rural land registry from Verona have shown that the granting of ius Latii did not fail to bring along some urban innovations among the Po valley’s .towns. Hence the need to revalue both the correctness and the limits of the expression ‘fictitious colonization’, now come into use.