nse to a request made by the civitas and must have taken account of the relations that already existed between it and the pagus. It was the autonomy that the civitas had achieved during the reign of Marcus Aurelius and the granting of Roman law that raised the specter of a fusion of the two communities, which would without a doubt have provoked a certain unease in the pagus. The inhabitants of the pagus would have expressed �concern or even refusal when faced with the pretensions of their closest neighbors�. This would explain the honor that the pagus attributed to Commodus (conservator pagi, protector of the pagus) '.
For Michel Christol, the term Liberum must be understood in this context and in an abstract sense. This liberty derives from belonging to a city and expresses the end of the civitas� dependence, �the elevation of a community of peregrine to the liberty of Roman citizenship�, which also served to placate the fears of the inhabitants of the pagus and to open the door to a later promotion, to the status of a colony. This promotion took place in 261 CE, during the reign of Gallienus, following an appeal from Aulus Vitellius Felix Honoratus in Michel Christol�s version of events. Thereafter, the defence of the libertas publica was not a question of defending a privilege at risk, but of requesting the �ultimate liberty� (summa libertas) - the promotion to the status of a colony. Michel Christol also points out the abstract character of terms such as libertas or dignitas; despite their abstract use, they are references to concrete and unique events
