Vicus

In Ancient Rome, the Latin term vicus (plural vici) designated a village within a rural area (pagus) or the neighbourhood of a larger settlement.[1] During the Republican era, the four regiones of the city of Rome were subdivided into vici. In the 1st century BC, Augustus reorganized the city for administrative purposes into 14 regions, comprising 265 vici.[2] Each vicus had its own board of officials who oversaw local matters. These administrative divisions are recorded as still in effect at least until the mid-4th century.[3][4]

The word "vicus" was also applied to the smallest administrative unit of a provincial town within the Roman Empire, referring to an ad hoc provincial civilian settlement that sprang up close to and because of a nearby military fort or state-owned mining operation.

  1. ^ Galsterer, Hartmut (2006). "Vicus". Brill's New Pauly. doi:10.1163/1574-9347_bnp_e12204300.
  2. ^ Paul Zoch, Ancient Rome: An Introductory History (University of Oklahoma Press, 1998), p. 233; Paul Zanker, The Power of Images in the Age of Augustus (University of Michigan Press, 1988), p. 155.
  3. ^ As recorded in the regionary catalogues; Andrew Wallace-Hadrill, "Emperors and Houses in Rome," in Childhood, Class, and Kin in the Roman World (Routledge, 2001), and "Domus and insulae in Rome: Families and Housefuls," in Early Christian Families in Context: An Interdisciplinary Dialogue (Wm. B. Eerdmans, 2003).
  4. ^ J. Bert Lott (19 April 2004). The Neighborhoods of Augustan Rome. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-82827-7.

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