Praeneste was made a colony by Sulla, the governing body was a senate,[194] and the municipal officers were praetors,[195] aediles,[196] and quaestors,[197] as we know certainly from inscriptions.  In the literature, a praetor is mentioned in 319 B.C.,[198] in 216 B.C.,[199] and again in 173 B.C. implicitly, in a statement concerning the magistrates of an allied city.[200] In fact nothing in the inscriptions or in the literature gives a hint at any change in the political relations between Praeneste and Rome down to 90 B.C., the year in which the lex Iulia was passed.  If a dictator was ever at the head of the city government in Praeneste, there are none of the proofs remaining, such as are found in the towns of the Alban Hills, in Etruria, and in the medix tuticus of the Sabellians.  The fact that no trace of the dictator remains either in Tibur or Praeneste seems to imply that these two towns had better opportunities for a more rapid development, and that both had praetors at a very early period.[201]

However strongly the weight of probabilities make for proof in the endeavor to find out what the municipal government of Praeneste was, there are a certain number of facts that can now be stated positively.  Before 90 B.C. the administrative officers of Praeneste were two praetors,[202] who had the regular aediles and quaestors as assistants.  These officers were elected by the citizens of the place.  There was also a senate, but the qualifications and duties of its members are uncertain.  Some information, however, is to be derived from the fact that both city officers and senate were composed in the main of the local nobility.[203]

An important epoch in the history of Praeneste begins with the year 91 B.C.  In this year the dispute over the extension of the franchise to Italy began again, and the failure of the measure proposed by the tribune M. Livius Drusus led to an Italian revolt, which soon assumed a serious aspect.  To mitigate or to cripple this revolt (the so-called Social or Marsic war), a bill was offered and passed in 90 B.C.  This was the famous law (lex Iulia) which applied to all Italian states that had not revolted, or had stopped their revolt, and it offered Roman citizenship (civitas) to all such states, with, however, the remarkable provision, if they desired it.[204] At all events, this law either did not meet the needs of the occasion, or some of the allied states showed no eagerness to accept Rome’s offer.  Within a few months after the lex Iulia had gone into effect, which was late in the year 90, the lex Plautia Papiria was passed, which offered Roman citizenship to the citizens (cives et incolae) of the federated cities, provided they handed in their names within sixty days to the city praetor in Rome.[205]