Organisation politique et administrative des cités d’Europe occidentale sous l’Empire

Abstract

The city appears at once as the constitutive unit of the provinces, but it sometimes represents too important a surface to be able to function in an immediate relation between central town and surrounding rural territory. In many cases, the city appears subdivised into smaller units, on which sometimes lie built up areas, fairly distant from the city’s county town. As regards territorial subdivisions known under the name of pagus the juridical and gromatic sources, scant as they may be, supply enough information for one to realise their role within the city. As regards the vici, to which one rightly hesitates to assimilate all the towns archeologically identified, the question is hotly debated. The present article tries to illustrate the full complexity of the nature of the city territories, such as they can be grasped through the variety of the sources.

Keywords

• Pagus
• vicus
• territory
• city
• administration
• fiscal system