Note 33 — Chapter II

These remarkable arrangements are clear, especially from the lists of Spanish places in Pliny, and have been well exhibited by Detlefsen (Philologus, xxxii., 606 f.). The terminology no doubt varies. As the designations civitas, populus, gens, belong to the independent community, they pertain de jure to these portions; thus, e.g. there is mention of the X civitates of the Autrigones, of the XXII populi of the Asturians, of the gens Zoelarum (C. I. L. ii. 2633), which is just one of these twenty–two tribes. The remarkable document which we possess concerning these Zoelae (C. I. L. ii. 2633) informs us that this gens was again divided into gentilitates, which latter are also themselves called gentes, as this same document and other testimonies (Eph. Ep. ii. p. 243) prove. Civis is also found in reference to one of the Cantabrian populi (Eph. Ep. ii. p. 243). But even for the larger canton, which indeed was once the political unit, there are no other designations than these, strictly speaking, retrospective and incorrect; gens in particular is employed for it even in the technical style (e.g., C. I. L. ii. 4233 Intercat[iensis] ex gente Vaccaeorum). That the commonwealth in Spain was based on those small districts, not on the cantons, is clear as well from the terminology itself as from the fact that Pliny in iii. 3, 18, places overagainst those 293 places the civitates contributae aliis; moreover it is shown by the official at census accipiendos civitatium XXIII Vasconum et Vardulorum (C. I. L. vi. 1463) compared with the censor civitatis Remorum foederatae (C. I. L. xi. 1855, comp. 2607).