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

dictatorship of the Latin states. 18 Some historians noted that in Latin inscriptions the
meddices in Oscan communities were replaced by praetors, and in literature the
words praetor and strategos are used instead of meddix. 19
All scholars after Weinstock have agreed that the meddix tuticus was not a pan-
Samnite federal magistrate. However, the number and collegiality of the meddices
have continued to be debated, as well as whether the titles of meddix tuticus and
plain meddix denoted the same office. Heurgon accepted that the meddix tuticus was
the single leading officer of a community, but argued that the meddiz without any
adjective was inferior (minive or minor) to the meddix tuticus, similar to the
relationship of the praetores ininores to the praetor urbanus at Rome. 20 Mazzarino
argued against the existence of separate Etruscan, Latin or Oscan constitutions, he
instead championed the idea of an Italic koine with a common constitution but with
many local variations, so that changes. would have had repercussions on the
neighbouring communities? ' This argument allowed for some communities with
only one eponymous meddix, as in Lucania. Others, however, had two equal
ineddices, as at Velletri and Messina, or two unequal ones as at Capua. 22 Mazzarino
also suggested that the collegial rnagistratus had evolved from the single magistracy.
The colleagues in office in several communities were replaced by pairs of praetores
under Roman influence, as at Anagni of the Hernici and Velletri of the Volsci. 23
Although the argument that the rneddix tuticus was a federal magistrate has
been generally been rejected, few doubts have been raised about the existence of
leagues in Campania. Sartori's work, for instance, begins with the affirmation that
18 Weinstock (1931) 245.
19 CIL IX 689,690,698, Livy 8.39.13; 23.7.8; 24.47.7; Diodorus 22.13.2,5.
20 Heurgon (1942) 235.
21 Mazzarino (1992).
22 Mazzarino (1992) 162.
23 Mazzarino (1992) 163.
17