Civic honours and political participation in late antique Italy

Abstract

This article analyses the role of civic honours in the municipal life of late antique Italy, considering its forms and dynamics. As the article shows, Italian civic life was much more diverse than previously thought, incorporating different social agents - and especially popular and non-elite groups and associations, from collegia to the populus. Popular involvement played a major part in the continuity of the practice of bestowing civic honours, and its decline in the mid-fourth century was accompanied by a decline in the classical forms of celebrating social links and personal standing in city life.