This collected volume originates in a set of papers presented during a panel held at the 2016 Roman Archaeology Conference in Rome and chaired by Michel Tarpin. Relying on recent research on Roman colonisation in Italy during the Middle Republican period (see T. D. Stek and J. Pelgrom (eds), Roman Republican Colonization. New Perspectives from Archaeology and Ancient History (2014)), the volume focuses on the alignment — and in some cases the mismatch — between the legal procedures needed for the founding of a colony and the material organisation of the new community. A recurrent question throughout the volume concerns the timeline of the establishment of colonial settlements, in particular the reasons for and implications of the gap, which could last several months or even years, between the moment when the decision was officially taken to settle a colony and the moment when the settlers started to occupy the land. The problem is made even more difficult by the fact that archaeological data are usually unable to be of much use across such a (short) time span. The volume consists of only five papers, the first two dealing with the legal, institutional and administrative processes related to the foundation of colonies, the three others being case studies. All but one focus on the period between the dissolution of the Latin League and the outbreak of the Social War (338–91 b.c.).

Based on a systematic survey of all of the literary and epigraphic evidence available (usefully compiled in an appendix at 57–94), the first paper by Michel Tarpin examines the legal procedure required for the foundation of a colony for the period under review and considers a time span of one to two years to have been usual between the issuance by the Senate of the decree ordering the foundation of a colony and the actual sending of settlers. Contrary to what scholarship commonly assumes, Tarpin shows that the foundational act for a colony was not the religious rituals, but the registration of the colonists through a census operation. This transfer of the citizens to their new community was known as the deductio, a term which was specific to the colonies (for municipia a generic verb such as condere, ‘to found’, was used). Tarpin also emphasises that although colonies could be reinforced by the addition of more settlers in subsequent years, it was in theory forbidden to renew the deductio (Cic., Phil. 2.102–3). This reminder is especially important for the late republican colonies and should encourage us to be more cautious in the use of the word ‘refoundation’ when it comes, for instance, to the Caesarian colonies which were reinforced by Octavian, as well as to look closer at the procedures used in those circumstances.

Capitalising on his previous work on the administration of Republican Italy, Simone Sisani observes that, contrary to the local communities which were uniformly provided with this status after the Social War, the older municipia — the ones Gellius (NA 16.13) is referring to when contrasting municipia and coloniae — had been able to preserve their autonomy in many fields (institutions, civil law, language). This raises the question of how justice was exercised outside the colonies and how local officials interacted with the praefecti sent by Rome to deal with jurisdiction throughout Italy, depending on the many different situations at the local level (municipia, civitates sine suffragio, Roman citizens who were settled as individuals, ager publicus, etc.). As time went on, the praefecturae (which are listed together with the municipia down to the Social War at 131–48) were gradually phased out as a consequence of the generalisation of full Roman citizenship to civitates sine suffragio, in particular during the censorship of 189/8 b.c.

The two following papers by Frank Vermeulen (149–278) and by Giuseppe Lepore and Michele Silani (179–212) deal with two specific cases of colonies settled on the Adriatic coast, Potentia in 184 b.c. and Sena Gallica in 290 or 284 b.c., and present the preliminary results of recent surveys and excavations. Both show that the sites where the colonies were settled had already been occupied previously — by Picenians and Gauls respectively — during the fifth/fourth century b.c. Potentia is an interesting example of early monumentalisation of the urban centre with the construction of walls and a forum just a few years or decades after the foundation of the colony. It is worth noting that this contrasts with late republican colonies for which the earliest archaeological evidence tend to date almost a century after their foundation (see R. J. Sweetman (ed.), Roman Colonies in the First Century of Their Foundation (2011)). Rural settlements and farms have also been identified for the earlier phases of the colony. Vermeulen assumes that a settlement of Roman citizens might have pre-dated the formal foundation of the colony in Potentia (156) and speaks of a ‘re-colonisation’ (166) with the addition of new colonists during the second Triumvirate. Unfortunately, no systematic attempt has been made to draw on Tarpin's paper to address the legal context and implications of these interventions. In their paper on Sena Gallica, Lepore and Silani propose a reconstruction of the extent of the colonial territory. Although they mention the discovery of traces of centuriation in the landscape, no methodological discussion is offered of the available evidence and of its interpretation. Moreover, their suggestion to use the word pagi to characterise the rural settlements which have been identified on the territory of Sena Gallica — although no inscription confirms their status — illustrates the problems with interpreting archaeological evidence according to known legal categories. Unlike the rest of the volume, the last paper by G. Tirologos examines the case of a colony which was founded in the late republican period and outside Italy, offering new thoughts on the possible date of the foundation of Philippi in Macedonia (on this issue, see now C. Brélaz, Philippes, colonie romaine d'Orient. Recherches d'histoire institutionnelle et sociale (2018), 19–116). Whereas scholarship usually considers that Philippi was founded by Antony in the aftermath of the battle of 42 b.c., Tirologos rightly mentions that the foundation of the colony, which was presented as Antony's personal achievement, could just as well have occurred slightly later, at any time during the years 41 or 40 b.c. One should point out, however, that one of the original names of the colony seems to have been Victrix and that this was meant as a reference to, and a celebration of, the battle of 42 b.c.

On the whole, this volume raises stimulating questions about both the legal and material aspects of the foundation of colonies by the Roman State in Italy. It suggests that this was never a smooth and linear process, and that the settlement of Roman citizens could have taken many different forms (including the occupation of a territory outside the formal procedure of colonial foundation: see e.g. 52–3 and 191). It remains now to wish that further projects on Roman colonies might make a more consistent use of both forms of evidence — archaeological and legal — simultaneously to be able to reconstruct in greater detail the first phases of the installation of settlers and land occupation.