There seems to be, however, very good reasons for saying that Praeneste never became a municipium in the strict legal sense of the word. First, the particular officials who belong to a municipium, praefects and quattuorvirs, are not found at all;[222] second, the use of the word municipium in literature in connection with Praeneste is general, and means simply "town";[223] third, the fact that Praeneste, along with Tibur, had clung so jealously to the title of federated state (civitas foederata) from some uncertain date to the time of the Latin rebellion, and more proudly than ever from 338 to 90 B.C., makes it very unlikely that so great a downfall of a city's pride would be passed over in silence; fourth and last, the fact that the Praenestines asked the emperor Tiberius to give them the status of a municipium,[224] which he did,[225] but it seems (see note 60) with no change from the regular city officials of a colony,[226] shows clearly that the Praenestines simply took advantage of the fact that Tiberius had just recovered from a severe illness at Praeneste[227] to ask him for what was merely an empty honor. It only salved the pride of the Praenestines, for it gave them a name which showed a former sovereign federated state, and not the name of a colony planted by the Romans.[228] The cogency of this fourth reason will bear elaboration. Praeneste would never have asked for a return to the name municipium if it had not meant something. At the very best she could not have been a real municipium with Roman citizenship longer than seven years, 89 to 82 B.C., and that at a very unsettled time, nor would an enforced taking of the status of a municipium, not to mention the ridiculously short period which it would have lasted, have been anything to look back to with such pride that the inhabitants would ask the emperor Tiberius for it again. What they did ask for was the name municipium as they used and understood it, for it meant to them everything or anything but colonia.