Free city (classical antiquity)

A free city (Latin: civitas libera, urbs liberae condicionis; Greek: ἐλευθέρα καὶ αὐτόνομος πόλις)^[1] was a self-governed city during the Hellenistic and Roman Imperial eras. The status was given by the king or emperor, who nevertheless supervised the city's affairs through his epistates or curator (Greek: epimeletes) respectively. Several autonomous cities had also the right to issue civic coinage bearing the name of the city.

History

Examples of free cities include Amphipolis, which after 357 BC remained permanently a free and autonomous city inside the Macedonian kingdom;^[2] and probably also Cassandreia and Philippi.

Under Seleucid rule, numerous cities enjoyed autonomy and issued coins; some of them, like Seleucia and Tarsus continued to be free cities, even after the Roman conquest by Pompey. Nicopolis was also constituted a free city by Augustus, its founder.^[3] Thessalonica after the battle of Philippi, was made a free city in 42 BC, when it had sided with the victors.^[4] Athens, a free city with its own laws, appealed to Hadrian to devise new laws which he modelled on those given by Draco and Solon.^[5]

Autonomi^[6] or rather Autonomoi was the name given by the Greeks to those states which were governed by their own laws, and were not subject to any foreign power.^[7] This name was also given to those cities subject to the Romans, which were permitted to enjoy their own laws, and elect their own magistrates.^[8] This permission was regarded as a great privilege, and mark of honour; and it is accordingly found recorded on coins and medals (e.g. Metropolis of the Antiochians autonomous).^[9]