Few things have been so much discussed as the question to what places this -ius- of the twelve towns refers; and yet the answer is not far to seek.

There were in Italy and Cisalpine Gaul--laying aside some places that soon disappeared again--thirty-four Latin colonies established in all.
The twelve most recent of these--Ariminum, Beneventum, Firmum, Aesernia, Brundisium, Spoletium, Cremona, Placentia, Copia, Valentia, Bononia, and Aquileia--are those here referred to; and because Ariminum was the oldest of these and the town for which this new organization was primarily established, partly perhaps also because it was the first Roman colony founded beyond Italy, the -ius- of these colonies rightly took its name from Ariminum.

This at the same time demonstrates the truth of the view--which already had on other grounds very high probability--that all the colonies established in Italy (in the wider sense of the term) after the founding of Aquileia belonged to the class of burgess-colonies.
We cannot fully determine the extent to which the curtailment of the rights of the more recent Latin towns was carried, as compared with the earlier.

If intermarriage, as is not improbable but is in fact anything but definitely established (i.

132; Diodor.p.590, 62, fr.
Vat.p.130, Dind.), formed a constituent element of the original federal equality of rights, it was, at any rate, no longer conceded to the Latin colonies of more recent origin.
35.