This is a study about the fi rst known literary and epigraphic evidences on relationship in civic patronage in Hispania, dated nearly between years 77-27 BC. The kept sources allow us to outline the profi le of the fi rst patroni of the Hispanic civic communities (magistratus cum imperio), as well as to show that these public patronages were in general stablished not because of war and conquest, but establishing alliances and granting benefi cia to clientcommunities. Finally we also analyse the rules to appoint patronage according to chapter 97 of the Lex Coloniae Genetivae Iuliae and the differences, still prevailing in the late years of Republic, between hospitium and patrocinium. 

Keywords: civic patronage, civic honours, roman municipal law and local administration.