2013
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Enrique Melchor Gil, « “Entre el deseo de perpetuidad y la necesidad de renovación: sobre el reclutamiento de decuriones y la estabilidad de las aristocracias locales en los siglos II y III d. C.” », L'Antiquité Classique, ID : 10.3406/antiq.2013.3833
Between the Desire of Perpetuity and the Necessity for Renewal : on the Recruitment of Decurions and the Stability of the Local Aristocracy during the 2nd and 3rd Centuries AD – Taking into consideration the analysis of the mechanism of admission to the local senates during the High Roman Empire and following the pattern reference of the curias of Irni and Canusium, we can observe how, since the end of the Republican period, the municipal elites have at least partial control over access by new members into the ordo decurionum, also admitting candidates of plebeian origin. Various demographic, social and economical reasons made it necessary to renew periodically the ordines curionum through the admission of homini novi. Nevertheless, some provisions, like the one contained in Digesto L, II, 7, 2 contributed towards helping the political progression of those who were descendants of members of the local senates. Finally, we state that, during the 2nd and 3rd centuries AD, the admission of people under twenty-five and of alieni, into the curias, must not be understood as evidence of an early crisis of municipal life, nor even as the beginning of a decline in the local aristocracies, but as a sign of vitality of that social group, whose members went on, until the 3rd century AD, contending for access to Honours.