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Home , Barbarian, Constitutio Antoniniana, Romanization (cultural), Roman citizenship, Septimius Severus

Immigration and Integration in the Late : The Case of Barbarian

BY RALPH W. MATHISEN

The population of the early Roman Empire included cives romani (›Roman citizens‹); provinciales (›provincials‹) or peregrini (›foreigners‹), the free non- citizen inhabitants of the provinces; freedmen (freed slaves of Roman citi- zens), and slaves.1 Whereas Roman citizens were subject to Roman civile (›law of citizens‹), provinciales remained liable to whatever legal system was in effect in their communities at the time of their annexation by . One of the great successes of the Roman Empire was that gradual- ly became available to everyone living in the empire. There was a regular fil- tering up of individuals from less privileged legal status to more privileged legal status, and a constant increase in the numbers of full Roman citizens.2 This form of the incorporation of peregrini into the Roman world has been very well studied.3 What has not been investigated nearly so well, however, is the legal status of ›‹, that is, individuals from outside the Roman Empire who settled within the Empire.4 Ever since the early , bar- barians had been resettled en masse on Roman territory.5 But the details, and

1 Sections of this study draws upon Ralph W. Mathisen, Peregrini, Barbari, and Cives Romani: Concepts of Citizenship and the Legal Identity of Barbarians in the Later Roman Empire, in: American Historical Review, 111. 2006, pp. 1011–1040, © 2006 by the American Historical Association; note also idem, Provinciales, , and between Romans and Barbarians in the Late Roman Empire, in: Journal of Roman Studies (JRS), 99. 2009, pp. 140–155. 2 For Roman citizenship, see Max Kaser, Das römische Privatrecht. Erster Abschnitt. Das alt- römische, das vorklassische, und klassische Recht, vol. 1, 2nd ed. Munich 1971, pp. 279–282; Adrian N. Sherwin-White, The Roman Citizenship, 2nd ed. Oxford 1979; Claude Nicolet, The World of the Citizen in Republican Rome, trans. by Paul S. Falla, London 1980; idem, Le métier de citoyen dans la Rome républicaine, 2nd ed. Paris 1989; Jane F. Gardner, Being a Roman Citizen, London 1993. 3 E.g., Paulo Donati Giacomini/Gabrielle Poma, Cittadini e non cittadini nel Mondo Romano. Guida ai testi e ai documenti, 1996; David Noy, Foreigners at Rome: Citizens and Strangers, London 2000; Geoffrey E. M. de Ste. Croix, Class Struggle in the World, Ithaca 1981, pp. 453–461. 4 See now Mathisen, Peregrini. And note that the term ›barbarian‹ is used as a convenient non- pejorative generic term for persons originating from outside the Roman Empire. 5 See, e.g., Evangelos K. Chrysos, Legal Concepts and Patterns for the Barbarians’ Settlement on Roman Soil, in: idem/Andreas Schwarcz (eds.), Das Reich und die Barbaren, Vienna 1989, pp. 13–23; Dietrich Claude, Zur Ansiedlung barbarischer Föderaten in der ersten Hälfte des 5. Jahrhunderts, in: Herwig Wolfram/Andreas Schwarcz (eds.), Anerkennung und Inte- gration. Zu den wirtschaftlichen Grundlagen der Völkerwanderungszeit 400–600, Vienna

153 Ralph W. Mathisen in particular the legal details, of how these barbarians were integrated into the Roman world have been curiously unexplored – a legacy, no doubt, of a long historical tradition of assuming that nothing that happened beyond the imperi- al frontiers was of any great significance, and that any barbarians who did make their way inside the imperial frontiers were no doubt better off for it. Barbarians who settled within the Empire would have gained various kinds of legal status simply by being there. They would have become provinciales, which would have made them eligible for service in the , and hence for enrolment as cives Romani within a very short time.6 Thus, by a relatively rap- id process, many thousands of barbarians would have quickly cycled into the citizen ranks. There thus was a long tradition of unobtrusive integration of many barbarians into the Roman world.7 In the 220s, the historian noted: »The barbarians [] were adapting themselves to the Roman world. They were setting up markets and peaceful meetings [] They did not find it difficult to change their life, and they were becoming different without realiz- ing it.«8 Over time, the citizen body increased to the point where access to Roman ius civile (›the law of citizens‹), became less and less a special status and more a lowest common denominator. This process culminated with the issuance in 212 of the Antonine , in which the emperor (211–217) granted citizenship to nearly all of the inhabitants of the Roman Empire who did not already possess it.9 The descendents of previous barbarian settlers

1988, pp. 13–16; Ramsay MacMullen, Barbarian Enclaves in the Northern Roman Empire, in: L’Antiquité classique, 32. 1963, pp. 552–561; Lawrence Okamura, Roman Withdrawals from Three Transfluvial Frontiers, in: Ralph W. Mathisen/Hagith S. Sivan, Shifting Frontiers in , Aldershot (GB) 1996, pp. 11–19; and, with a comprehensive list, Ste. Croix, Class Struggle, pp. 245–249, 509–518. 6 Note George L. Cheesman, The Auxilia of the , Ares 1975; Paul Holder, Studies in the Auxilia of the Roman Army from to , Oxford 1980; Dennis B. Saddington, The Development of the Roman Auxiliary Forces from to , Ha- rare 1982; Ian P. Haynes, The of Religion in the Auxilia of the Roman Imperial Army from Augustus to , in: : A Journal of Romano-British and Kindred Studies, 24. 1993, pp. 141–157; John Spaul, ALA 2. The Auxiliary Cavalry Units in the Pre-Diocletianic Imperial Roman Army, Andover 1994. 7 See, e.g., Jeannot Metzler et al. (eds.), Integration in the Early Roman West, Luxembourg 1995; Greg Woolf, Becoming Roman: The Origins of Provincial in , Cam- bridge 1998; Charles R. Whittaker, and : The Roman Initiative, in: David J. Mattingly (ed.), Dialogues in Roman Imperialism: Power, Discourse, and Discrepant Expe- in the Roman Empire (Journal of Roman , Supplementary Series, no.23), Portsmouth (RI) 1997, pp. 143–164. 8 Cass. Dio 56,18,2. 9 For the , see Emil Condurachi, La costituzione Antoniniana e la sua applicazione nell’impero romano, in: : revue d’archéologie et d’histoire ancienne = Journal of Archaeology and , 2. 1958, pp. 281–311; Christoph Sasse, Die constitutio Antoniniana. Eine Untersuchung über den Umfang der Bürgerrechtsverleihung auf Grund von Papyrus Gissensis 40 I, Wiesbaden 1958; Adam Łukaszewicz, Zum Papyrus Gis- sensis 40 I 9 (›Constitutio Antoniniana‹), in: The Journal of Juristic Papyrology, 20. 1990, pp. 93–101; Harold I. Bell, The Constitutio Antoniniana and the Egyptian Poll-Tax, in: JRS,

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