Anastasia de Waal is deputy director at the thinktank Civitas.
Controlled by the Romans from about 50 bc, the civitas was a part of the province of Aquitania.
Nothing is known thereafter until in 290 the Sabines were conquered and granted civitas sine suffragio; in 268 they received full Roman citizenship.
'The people' or 'the state' is expressed in Latin by populus or civitas (the latter literally 'citizenship,' based on civis 'citizen'), but by Oscan touto, Umbrian tuta, South Picene toúta = Irish túath = Gothic thiuda.
The town, which flourished in pre-Roman and Roman days, became the seat of a bishop and a civitas (provincial capital) in the 3rd century.
Over time, however, the idea of public duty gave way to private ambition, especially as Roman citizenship became more universal (see civitas).
The Britons were initially successful, but ultimately the Romans suppressed the rebellion harshly and reduced the Iceni to a small tribal community, or civitas, with its capital at Venta Icenorum (present-day Caistor St. Edmunds, near Norwich).
Then Roman civitas was extended to provincials, but not en masse; granting Roman citizenship to soldiers and aristocrats of provincial origin hastened the pace of Romanization in the western provinces.
For them it meant much the same as either civitas or res publica did for the Romans, or as "the state" means in the 20th century.
Limousin took its name from the tribe of the Lemovices, under whom the area formed a civitas, or tribal association, of Gaul.
