A term of the Roman law descriptive of the aggregate of rights, privileges, and franchises possessed by the cities and inhabitants of Italy, outside of the city of Rome, and afterwards extended to some of the colonies and provinces of the empire, consisting principally in the right to have a free constitution, to be exempt from the land tax, and to have the title to the land regarded as Quiritarian property. See Gibbon, Rom. Emp. c xvii; Mackeld. Rom. Law,