Quick questions on Local political life in Pompeii and Herculaneum: HSC Ancient History

Pompeii's political institutions followed the model of Roman municipia and colonies, set out in the Lex Coloniae Genetivae Iuliae (the colonial charter of Caesar's colony at Urso in Spain, c. 44 BC), which served as a template across the empire. Herculaneum had similar institutions on a smaller scale.

The standard career path ran aedile (in one's twenties) to duumvir (in one's thirties or older) to (in exceptional cases) quinquennial duumvir.

Around 2,800 painted electoral notices (programmata) survive on Pompeian walls from the campaign of AD 79. The eruption preserved the campaign mid-stream.

Groups of supporters appear in the programmata as informal political constituencies.

The Forum was the political stage. The Comitium (south end) was the voting space. The Curia (council building) housed the decurions. The Basilica (south-west of the Forum) was the law court.

Henrik Mouritsen (Elections, Magistrates and Municipal Elite, 1988; The Freedman in the Roman World, 2011) is the canonical study. He treats Pompeian politics as tightly oligarchic, with the programmata reflecting clientage networks.

Consul is the senior Roman magistracy at Rome. Duovir is the senior municipal magistracy in a colony. Don't elide them.

Mouritsen's clientage thesis is now the standard view. Voting was free-born only, with weighted blocks. Cite him.

Freedmen could not be magistrates but could be Augustales. The distinction is examinable.

The campaign was halted mid-stream; many candidates were preserved in the moment of campaigning.