On the other hand the Roman element was promoted by the government through colonization and Latinizing with all vigour and at the most various points of the empire. The principle, which originated no doubt from a bad combination of formal law and brute force, but was inevitably necessary in order to freedom in dealing with the nations destined to destruction - that all the soil in the provinces not ceded by special act of the government to communities or private persons was the property of the state, and the holder of it for the time being had merely an heritable possession on sufferance and revocable at any time - was retained also by Caesar and raised by him from a democratic party-theory to a fundamental principle of monarchical law.
Gaul, of course, fell to be primarily dealt with in the extension of Roman nationality. Cisalpine Gaul obtained throughout - what a great part of the inhabitants had long enjoyed - political equalization with the leading country by the admission of the Transpadane communities into the Roman burgess-union, which had for long been assumed by the democracy as accomplished[90], and was now (705) finally accomplished by Caesar. Practically this province had already completely Latinized itself during the forty years which had elapsed since the bestowal of Latin rights. The exclusives might ridicule the broad and gurgling accent of the Celtic Latin, and miss "an undefined something of the grace of the capita", in the Insubrian or Venetian, who as Caesar's legionary had conquered for himself with his sword a place in the Roman Forum and even in the Roman senate-house. Nevertheless Cisalpine Gaul with its dense chiefly agricultural population was even before Caesar's time in reality an Italian country, and remained for centuries the true asylum of Italian manners and Italian culture; indeed the teachers of Latin literature found nowhere else out of the capital so much encouragement and approbation.
While Cisalpine Gaul was thus substantially merged in Italy, the place which it had hitherto occupied was taken by the Transalpine province, which had been converted by the conquests of Caesar from a frontier into an inland province, and which by its vicinity as well as by its climate was fitted beyond all other regions to become in due course of time likewise an Italian land. Thither principally, according to the old aim of the transmarine settlements of the Roman democracy, was the stream of Italian emigration directed. There the ancient colony of Narbo was reinforced by new settlers, and four new burgess-colonies were instituted at Baeterrae (Beziers) not far from Narbo, at Arelate (Aries) and Arausio (Orange) on the Rhone, and at the new seaport Forum Julii (Frejus); while the names assigned to them at the same time preserved the memory of the brave legions which had annexed northern Gaul to the empire[91]. The townships not furnished with colonists appear, at least for the most part, to have been led on toward Romanization in the same way as Transpadane Gaul in former times[92] by the bestowal of Latin urban rights; in particular Nemausus (Nimes), as the chief place of the territory taken from the Massiliots in consequence of their revolt against Caesar[93], was converted from a Massiliot village into a Latin urban community, and endowed with a considerable territory and even with the right of coinage[94]. While Cisalpine Gaul thus advanced from the preparatory stage to full equality with Italy, the Narbonese province advanced at the same time into that preparatory stage; just as previously in Cisalpine Gaul, the most considerable communities there had the full franchise, the rest Latin rights.
In the other non-Greek and non-Latin regions of the empire, which were still more remote from the influence of Italy and the process of assimilation, Caesar confined himself to the establishment of several centres for Italian civilization such as Narbo had hitherto been in Gaul, in order by their means to pave the way for a future complete equalization. Such initial steps can be pointed out in all the provinces of the empire, with the exception of the poorest and least important of all, Sardinia. How Caesar proceeded in Northern Gaul, we have already set forth[95]; the Latin language there obtained throughout official recognition, though not yet employed for all branches of public intercourse, and the colony of Noviodunum (Nyon) arose on the Leman lake as the most northerly town with an Italian constitution.
In Spain, which was presumably at that time the most densely peopled country of the Roman empire, not merely were Caesarian colonists settled in the important Helleno-Iberian seaport town of Emporiae by the side of the old population; but, as recently-discovered records have shown, a number of colonists probably taken predominantly from the proletariate of the capital were provided for in the town of Urso (Osuna), not far from Seville in the heart of Andalusia, and perhaps also in several other townships of this province. The ancient and wealthy mercantile city of Gades, whose municipal system Caesar even when praetor had remodelled suitably to the times, now obtained from the Imperator the full rights of the Italian municipia (705) and became - what Tusculum had been in Italy[96] - the first extra-Italian community not founded by Rome which was admitted into the Roman burgess-union. Some years afterwards (709) similar rights were conferred also on some other Spanish communities, and Latin rights presumably on still more.
90. V. I. Transpadanes, V. VIII. Settlement of the New Monarchial Rule.
91. Narbo was called the colony of the Decimani, Baeterrae of the Septimani, Forum Julii of the Octavani, Arelate of the Sextani, Arausio of the Secundani. The ninth legion is wanting, because it had disgraced its number by the mutiny of Placentia (p. 246). That the colonists of these colonies belonged to the legions from which they took their names, is not stated and is not credible; the veterans themselves were, at least the great majority of them, settled in Italy (p. 358). Cicero's complaint, that Caesar "had confiscated whole provinces and districts at a blow", (De Off. ii. 7, 27; comp. Philipp. xiii. 15, 31, 32) relates beyond doubt, as its close connection with the censure of the triumph over the Massiliots proves, to the confiscations of land made on account of these colonies in the Narbonese province and primarily to the losses of territory imposed on Massilia.
92. IV. VII. Bestowal of Latin Rights on the Italian Celts.
93. V. XI. Other Magistracies and Attributions.
94. We are not expressly informed from whom the Latin rights of the non-colonized townships of this region and especially of Nemausus proceeded. But as Caesar himself (B. C. i. 35) virtually states that Nemausus up to 705 was a Massiliot village; as according to Livy's account (Dio, xli. 25; Flor. ii. 13; Oros. vi. 15) this very portion of territory was taken from the Massiliots by Caesar; and lastly as even on pre-Augustan coins and then in Strabo the town appears as a community of Latin rights, Caesar alone can have been the author of this bestowal of Latinity. As to Ruscino (Roussillon near Perpignan) and other communities in Narbonese Gaul which early attained a Latin urban constitution, we can only conjecture that they received it contemporarily with Nemausus.