Civitas Romana: The Fluidity of an Ideal

Abstract

ABSTRACT The view that the idea of citizenship almost entirely lost significance in late antiquity depends, it is argued here, on too narrow and too rigid a definition of citizenship. The major turning points are seen as the suppression by Augustus of key political institutions like the vote, and the extension by Caracalla of Roman citizenship to the free inhabitants of the Empire. This depends on emphasis on the political rights of citizenship as in the Aristotelian ideal, and on the supposed exemption of citizens from physical punishment. It is argued here that at all points the ideal and contents of citizenship were fluid, and that the importance of the status for other advantages of Roman law, especially the right of inheritance of property, have been underestimated. Despite Caracalla, citizenship was not a universal status, as is shown by the continued exclusion from citizen privileges of heretics and others classified as infames. Even after the collapse of central power in the western Empire, citizenship remained an ideal, now focused on membership of local communities rather than the ruling power.