Submitted for award of PhD September 2006. - King's College London

This section attempts to draw a picture of the political institutions of Capua on the
basis of the literary evidence. The next section brings in the epigraphic evidence.
The arrival of the Samnites ended the old political system at Capua associated
with the Etruscans. The Samnites brought their own administrative institutions with
them, but adjusted them to the reality that Capua was an urbanized settlement and
centre of a large territory before their arrival. The city's territory was scattered with
small villages and farmsteads, occasionally documented by archaeology, which did
not grow large enough to become independent centres themselves and therefore were
under the administrative system of Capua. Capua became a socius of Rome after the
Latin Wars, but was allowed to govern itself according to its own customs and laws.
Livy clearly identifies the nzeddix tuticus as the suinmus magistratus, the leading
office, of the Campani. 397 Elsewhere he mentions the office of the praetor
Campanus, by which, as the context shows, he again means the meddix tuticus 398
In
an unclear passage in the context of the Second Punic war, Ennius says that summus
ibi capitur rneddix occiditur alter. 399 This prompted scholars to argue that the office
of the ineddix tuticus was collegial 40° Skutsch, however, pointed out that the word
alter in Latin could mean not only 'other' but a 'second one, another. In that case,
the meddix tuticus, the single summus magistratus, would have had at least one lower
meddix subordinate to him. This is compatible with the passage in Festus 'ineddix
apud Oscos nomen magistratus est' 402 A qualifying adjective would specify his rank
and authority. The use of the title meddix in the probably second century BC Tabula
397 Livy 23.35.13; 24.19.2; 26.6.13.
398 Livy 23.7.8.
399 Ennius Ann. 8.289.
400 See Chapter 1.2 History of scholarship
401 Skutsch (1986) 467-468.
402 Festur p. 110.19. L
113