Extract

Ius Italicum was a privilege granted to certain communities in the Roman provinces whereby their land was treated in law as if it were in Italy. It was thus exempted from the rule that land in the provinces belonged to the state and could not be fully owned by private individuals; and the land and its inhabitants were free from taxes (tributum soli and tributum capitis). Under the empire this was the highest privilege obtainable by a provincial municipality (see municipium). *Augustus gave it only to genuine citizen colonies, mostly his eastern foundations. Later it was granted along with colonial rights to Roman municipalities, but, for fiscal reasons, sparingly. *Septimius Severus, however, gave it not only to three municipalities of Africa, his native province, but, after their co-operation in the civil war, to several Greek cities. This development typified the assimilation of east and west, which the constitutio Antoniniana (see constitution, antonine) completed.