Many modern historians believe there was a juridical incompatibility between the status of colonia Latina and the existence of foedus. A closer examination of the literary testimonies of the Republican period tends to show that this incompatibility did not exist: the Latin colonies were from the outset completely autonomous communities; they had their own laws and institutions, struck coins, and sent embassies to Rome, and no legal obstacle prevented them from concluding treaties with the city which had created them. The first Latin colonies were full members of the Latin League until its dissolution in 338 BC, and they were consequently bound to Rome by the foedus Cassianum, renewed in 358 BC. Several passages from Polybius, Cicero and Livy allow us to think that some of the Latin colonies at least founded after 338 BC had the same status as Tibur or Praeneste, who kept their foedus with Rome until 90 BC. In the case of Aventicum and Tyre, the epigraphic evidence shows that the status of colonia foederata did in fact exist under the Roman Empire.