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In Ancient Rome, the Latin term vicus (plural vici) designated a village within a rural area (pagus) or the neighbourhood of a larger settlement. During the Roman Republic, the four regiones of the city of Rome were subdivided into vici. In the 1st century BC, Augustus reorganized the city for administrative purposes into 14 regions, comprising 265 vici.Paul Zoch, Ancient Rome: An Introductory History (University of Oklahoma Press, 1998), p. 233; Paul Zanker, The Power of Images in the Age of Augustus (University of Michigan Press, 1988), p. 155. Each vicus had its own board of officials who oversaw local matters. These administrative divisions are recorded as still in effect at least until the mid-4th century.As recorded in the regionary catalogues; Andrew Wallace-Hadrill, "Emperors and Houses in Rome," in Childhood, Class, and Kin in the Roman World (Routledge, 2001), and " Domus and insulae in Rome: Families and Housefuls," in Early Christian Families in Context: An Interdisciplinary Dialogue (Wm. B. Eerdmans, 2003).
The word "vicus" was also applied to the smallest administrative unit of a Roman province town within the Roman Empire, referring to an ad hoc provincial civilian settlement that sprang up close to and because of a nearby military castrum or state-owned mining operation.
Vici is the term used for the extramural settlements of castra for military units (e.g. alae and cohorts), while canabae is generally used to describe extramural settlements of the major legionary fortresses, e.g. Eboracum (York), Vindobona (Vienna), Durostorum (Silistra, Bulgaria).Roman Towns of Britain, Guy de la Bedoyère. p 146 Initially ephemeral, many vici were transitory sites that followed a mobile unit; once a permanent garrison was established they grew into larger townships. Often the number of official civitates and coloniæ were not enough to settle everyone who wished to live in a town and so vici also attracted a wider range of residents, with some becoming chartered towns where no other existed nearby. Some, such as that at Vercovicium (Housesteads), outgrew their forts altogether, especially in the 3rd century once soldiers were permitted to marry.
Early vici had no civilian administration and were under the direct control of the Roman military commander. Those that attracted significant numbers of were later permitted to form local councils and some, such as the vicus at Eboracum (York), grew into regional centres and even provincial capitals.
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