PAGUS a canton.

The meaning of this word cannot be given in precise and absolute terms, partly because
we can have no doubt that its significance varied greatly between the earliest and the later times of Roman
history, partly because its application by Latin writers to similar, but not identical, communities outside Italy
(especially in Gaul) and their comparison of pagi with the Greek tend to complicate the question.
Latium was anciently divided into a number of clan-settlements or villages which were an aggregate of
dwellings gathered round a central enclosed or fortified space, an arx orcastellum [cf. OPPIDUM]. As
regards the terms vicus () and pagus in reference to these ancient settlements, we may gather from
various passages that vicus meant houses closely connected, and so a small village or hamlet of a continuous
street, pagus a district including scattered houses or scattered hamlets (Varro, L. L. 5.145; Festus, p.
371; Amm. Marc. 31.2, 17; VICUS). This will hold good, whether we take its etymology (pango) to signify
buildings or fixed boundary (cf. Mommsen, Roman Hist. vol. i. p. 38, withStaatsrecht, iii. p. 116). Old
writers have connected it with , the central village well, or with , i. e. a hill-fort (Festus, s.v.
Serv. ad Georg. 2.381; Dionys. A. R. 4.15): but the first would rather suit the vicus or hamlet, since
the pagus would have many wells, and the second would do better for the arx than for the district round it. In
speaking of clan-settlements, we must guard against the notion that the gens and pagus could be identified
the one with the other: the pagus was purely local and would remain, if the main body of the gens dwelling
in it migrated elsewhere: so long only as they dwelt there, they would be pagani of that pagus. We cannot
even assume that the inhabitants of a pagus were, except perhaps in altogether prehistoric times, members of
the same gens. It is [p. 2.310]probable indeed that originally they were so, and that afterwards in some cases
two or more gentes might have joined in the same pagus; in others some portions of the old gens or gentes
may have left the district, and their places have been filled up by others. Accordingly we find the names of
pagi mostly local with the termination--anus, but some few gentile, as pagus Valerius, pagus Julius, or the
Roman pagus Lemonius for instance (see Mommsen, Staatsr. 3.113): and even where pagi have gentile
names, we cannot always say whether the name belonged to it, as the original clan-settlement, or was given
in honour of some member of the gens afterwards connected with it.
Politically, as both Mommsen and Marquardt are careful to point out, the pagus did not form an independent
community. Here again, however, we cannot say that this was always true, and the original pagi may have
been purely independent clan-settlements: such an opinion would, after all, be in accord with a dictum in
Mommsen's Rome, All history begins, not with the union but with the disunion of a nation. But whatever
the pre-historic condition of these cantons, we know them as only single members of an aggregate state
called civitas or populus, which gathered together in fora or conciliabula for markets or for legislation, and,
as one people, combined for defensive or offensive warfare. This is indeed clearly indicated by Isidore
(Orig. 15.2, 11). The stages were, probably, first the pagus with its own centre of refuge and its own
sovereign rights, then several pagi gathering round a common centre for refuge--such, for instance, as
Tusculum, which became the urbs or oppidum of the combined pagi, and then a league of various canton
centres, such as Alba.

Though, however, the pagus was not (unless in primitive times) an independent state, it had an organisation
analogous to that of a collegium: we find that magister pagi=aedilespagi (sometimes a single magister pagi)-whom Dionys. A. R. 2.76, ascribing the institution to Numa, calls --are annually elected with
priestly functions, to look after the sacred rites of the pagus, with some police control also of local matters,
such as the roads (Siculus Flaccus, p. 146), and perhaps of water-supply (cf. Festus, s. v.sifus): a power of
fining the members of the pagus appears in inscriptions (C. I. L. 9.3513), and a common council for such
local business (C. I. L. 1.571). It is clear that their administrative importance, whatever it had been once,
dwindled to almost nothing,--to nothing in fact, apart from the religious rites, but what necessarily followed
on the pagus having common as well as private property,--but to a late period it remained as a geographical
term for the district of woodland and tillage outside a town and attached to it for all real administration,
containing within itself villages (vici), country houses (villae), and farms (fundi or praedia): often several
pagi attached to one large town, as for instance 11 pagi to Beneventum (see Isid. Orig. 15.2, 11; and the
inscriptions cited by Marquardt,Staatsr. i. p. 11).
It

may

be

seen

from

the

above

description

that

the

pagi

resembled

in

many

respects

village communes or Gemeinde, particularly those in Switzerland [cf. DEMUS], and they have often been
compared to the Attic It is highly probable that the primitive and the primitive pagus were
essentially the same, but it would be misleading to regard them as identical in historic times, as may be
readily seen by comparing the accounts in the separate articles. One salient point of difference was that the
connexion with the was retained whether the members of it dwelt in Athens or not, whereas the
contrary was the case with the pagus. Hence Mommsen in his Staatsrecht deprecates the comparison with
the , and prefers to compare the pagus with the Egyptian or the subdivision (for an
account of which see Marquardt, Staatsverw. i. pp. 447 f.): it must be observed, however, that the extent and
the administrative importance of the nome were much greater than those of the Italian pagus.
At Rome the inhabitants of the old city (for which see SEPTIMONTIUM) were calledmontani; the accretion
of other settlements, or pagi, later included in the city, furnished the pagani. Hence in the age of
Cicero montani et pagani would come to mean all the inhabitants of the city, as in Cic. de Domo, 27, 74;
Q. Cic. de pet. Cons. 8, 30 (if the readingmontium for omnium is adopted). So the Capitol, the Aventine, and
the Janiculum werepagi, not montes; and the terms pagus Janicolensis, pagus Aventinensis lasted down to
the year B.C. 7, when Augustus re-arranged the city.
The Celtic pagus, at the time of the Roman conquest, had at once a greater extent than the Italian, and a
greater power from the fact that these cantons were not in the same way changed from their primitive
condition and absorbed into a regularly constituted state, but still retained their own clan government with
generally a somewhat loose combination in the civitas (closer, however, among the Belgae than among other
Gallic tribes). The political state to some extent represents what Aristotle gives as in contradistinction
to --a people dwelling . From the direct information which we possess about

Gaul, we see that a certain number of pagi made up a civitas (Liv.Ep. 65): of the Helvetii there were four
pagi which made up the civitas Helvetica (Caes. Gal. 1.37): and four was probably the normal number,
though Caesar (4.1) tells us of the nation which he calls the Suevi with 100 pagi, each contributing 1000
warriors in a national war. The most powerful of the Helvetic pagi was the pagus Tigurinus, whose chief
place was Aventicum (Avenches, near the Lake of Morat; (C. I. Helvet. 159). It would seem that the Pays de
Vaud to some extent geographically represents the pagus Tigurinus, as etymologically pagus is represented
by pays. After the Roman conquest and the dissolution of the Helvetic civitas, the political and
administrative importance of the pagus ceases, and it retains only its religious functions (inser. cit.): that
the vicisubsequently had the power of making decrees is seen in several Helvetic inscriptions (149, 241,
&c.). Perhaps some indication of the nature and origin of the Celtic pagus may be found in the fact that
Strabo (iv. p.193 calls it , and Mommsen (Hermes, xix. p. 316) considers that it resembles [p.
2.311]a Roman tribus in its original composition. In the same article he shows that the clue to the real nature
and constitution of these cantons may be found in the account of the Galatian state given in Strabo.
The of the Galatians is one-fourth of the cicitas or : each tetrarchy had for matters of justice
or for command in war a head-man (): the office is for life and hereditary (Strabo xii.
p.547, : cf. p. 541, ); under the tetrarch are
officials called and , and two. There was a national council of the
three or civitates who occupied Asia, composed of the twelve tetrarchs and three hundred senators; but
except for cases of murder and the national concerns of peace and war, the twelve tetrarchies or pagi had
independent local government. For national interests the three at various periods had separate princes,
whom Strabo calls or a single for the three combined (Strabo, xii. pp. 566, 567). It is not
improbable that we have here an organisation belonging to the Celts in Gaul as well as in Asia. The fourfold
division may be traced in the four kings, or tetrarchs, of the Cantii (Caes. Gal. 5.22), whom we see acting
together in a national war under the leadership of Cassivellaunus, but apparently having rule over their
respective tetrarchies.
Paganalia.--The Italian pagi had their tutelary deities and sanctuaries, which are mentioned even in Christian
times (as in a conservative decree of Constantine, Cod. Theod. 16.10, 3). Here were celebrated in January at
the

end

of

seed-time,

semente

peracta,

the

country paganalia, which

corresponded

to

the feriae sementivae. (Preller, however, believes in a festival at the beginning as well as the end of seedtime: the evidence for his view is not satisfactory.) An offering was made to Tellus (in later times to Ceres)
of cakes of meal and a pregnant sow. At this festival also masks or small images were hung up [OSCILLA],
and there were games and rustic songs. (Ov. Fast. 1.667 ff.;Dionys. A. R. 4.15; Verg. G. 2.385; Hor. Ep.
1.1, 49; 2.1, 140.) The lustratio pagi at this festival was a rustic Ambarvalia, which, besides its religious
significance, had the advantages of fixing the boundaries of the pagus. [AMBARVALIA; LUSTRATIO.] At
the festival of the Paganalia the magister pagi presided, and his wife (magistra) assisted.

Pagani.--It remains only to remark on special acquired senses of this word, which strictly meant only those
who for the time being dwelt in any pagus. We find pagani used in contradistinction to milites or
to armati (Juv.

16.33; Plin.

Ep.

7.25, 10.86; Suet.

Aug.

27, Galb. 19;--Tac.

Hist.

1.53; 2.14, 88; 3.24, 43, 77; 4.20; Dig. 48, 19, 14). From these passages, and especially from Tacitus, taking
also notice of the date when the usage began, it is tolerably clear that the original distinction was between the
regularly enrolled soldiers and the irregular undrilled half-armed bands of rustics who in the Roman
campaigns fought sometimes against them for their country like the rustics inVerg. A. 7.505 or
modern francs-tireurs, sometimes in the ranks of one Roman army against another in times of civil war. The
famous Vos nisi vincitis pagani (Tac. Hist. 3.24) is not the same as Caesar's use of Quirites : the word
yokel might be used, but militiamen, i. e. rustic levies, would more nearly express the taunt which
Antonius Primus addressed to his soldiers. The more general opposition of the word to milesfollowed. The
modern use of the word pagan, from the fact that the old religion lingered most in the rural districts, first
appears in a law of Valentinian A.D. 368, when the old religion is called religio paganorum (Cod. Theod.
16.2, 18; cf. Isid. 8.10).
(For

the pagus, see

Mommsen, Rom. Hist. 1.37-40; Staatsrecht, iii.

pp.

112-119;

Marquardt, Staatsverwaltung, i. pp. 1.3-15;--for the Gallic pagi, Mommsen in Hermes,16.449 ff, 19.316 ff.;-for the paganalia, Marquardt, Staatsverw. 3.199; Preller, Rm. Myth. 404.)