The surprising modifications of a gromatic text about the alienigenae

Abstract

The paper aims at studying how a notice in the corpus of the Roman land surveyors was corrupted and how its meaning was altered from the time when it was first written (the Flavian period) until its last re-writing in the VI^th century. In its last form, the text came to deal with the accession of the alienigenae to the functions in the city (honores), while its first form was telling about the obligation of contributing to the onera of the city which was imposed on the alienigenae.