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Rome and the Unification of Italy
Scarcely more than a generation before Octavian (later Augustus) set out to encounter Antony and Cleopatra at the battle of Actium, confidently relying on the firm support of 'all Italy', the Italians were in revolt, with the avowed aim of destroying Rome. The impressive unity displayed in 31 BC was the hard-won product of fifty years of earlier struggle; and that struggle forms the subject of this book.
From the second century BC the subject peoples of Italy were motivated by a desire for equality with their powerful sister, Rome. Their reasons were diverse, but once their aspirations intruded on Rome's private life, they were to have a profound effect on her politics. At first it was hoped that equality could be achieved through citizenship but, when the Romans proved obdurate, the Italians sought complete independence.
Detailed reconstruction of the consequent 'Social War' is the central feature of the book. The war ended with Rome granting its citizenship to the Italians, though that grant was so hedged about with qualifications that further interventions proved necessary - these on so marked a scale that by the end of the 80s BC Italy and Rome had basically achieved the unity which Octavian was later able to exploit. Arthur Keaveney seeks here to delineate the factors which led to the Italian desire first for citizenship, then for independence; he describes the conflict and he assesses its outcomes. He maintains that Rome's 'Italian question' has to be treated as an essentially political issue.
- GenresNonfiction
251 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1987
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March 4, 2020
I feel like I should point out that this is more like a general reflection on a certain subject, rather than just a review of a book, no matter how great it is. I don't know why and it most definitely sounds bizarre but one of the topics that have occupied my mind for some time now is a topic of acquiring citizenship in Ancient Rome. Now that I've read a portion of books on the subject, I decided to gather my thoughts in one place. This book seems like a perfect candidate to start with.
First of all, it's important to realize that, principally, only the people of the city of Rome were eligible for Roman citizenship, even after Rome's conquest of the entire Italy in the third and second century BCE. Contrary to the modern principle of territoriality of law, the Roman law ascribed to the principle of personality of law, which in practice meant that, no matter where they were, a person was a subject to the law of the society they belonged to (vide: Litewski, Rzymskie prawo prywatne). But as the Romans grew in power, so did the discontent of their Italian allies, who provided soldiers for their conquests and carried the burden of wars, and yet didn't receive equal privileges. As Keaveney neatly puts it
What, then, were the privileges that the Italians so longed for? There were lots of them, actually (vide: Kuryłowicz, Woliński, Rzymskie prawo prywatne):
1) full legal capacity;
2) in private law:
a) ius conubii - the right to marry a Roman citizen and thus becoming one,
b) ius commercii - the right to conclude contracts,
c) ius legis actio - the right to bring the action before the courts;
3) in public law:
a) the right to serve in the Roman legions,
b) ius suffragii - the right to cast a vote during the comitia plebis and the right to choose higher magistrates,
c) ius honorum - the right to be elected to magisterial offices,
d) potestas et dominium - the right to possess the quiritan property (dominium ex iure Quiritium) and the right to the Roman parental authority (patria potestas), which in the Regal period and the Early Republican period meant that a head of the household could, for instance, legally kill his son, if he deemed it appropriate,
e) testamenti factio - the right to draw up a will and the right to be a recipient of it.
There were several ways to acquire Roman citizenship but, as stated above, they had personal/individual character rather than general/territorial one. Also, they all had to follow certain procedures, both legal and symbolic (vide: Flaig, Ritualisierte Politik).
The first and most obvious way to become a Roman citizen was to be born from parents who were Roman citizens. A child, whose parents' status wasn't matrimonium iustum, had a legal status of its mother.
Another way was to grant citizenship by legal provisions or through a decision of higher magistrates. In the Republican period, that decision, in the form of the lex (bill), belonged to the comitia plebis but the Roman Senate had to approve it. In c. 89 BCE, the comitia plebis ceded their competence to the Senate, the consuls and the war commanders. For example, by the power granted to them by the Senate, the commanders could issue the diplomata militaria viritim. First known use, virtutis ergo, comes from C. Marius during the invasions of the German tribes. To enhance soldiers' efficacy, the most distinguished soldiers were granted Roman citizenship. Caesar extended its use to the whole town of Gades in Spain and the whole legion of Galia Cisalpina. This practice proliferated way up to the Principate period and the Imperial period, but the ruler wasn't bound by the leges anymore. It was his personal decision.
From the fourth century BCE onwards, the Romans, acting through the consuls, started to establish colonies, or colonia Romana. At first, their purpose was to create a defensive ring around Rome but later they were places established for veterans coming back from wars.
Last but not least, one could acquire citizienship through the manumissio (manumission), which meant the emancipation of a slave through their master's discretional power or by a legal provision. There were several kinds of manumissio:
1) ius civile:
a) manumissio vindicta - manumission before and with the permission of public authority,
b) manumissio censu - manumission through enrolling a slave on the citizens' list during the census,
c) manumissio testamento - manumission in the deceased's will,
d) manumissio in ecclesia - from the fourth century CE, manumission before the bishop and religious community;
2) praetorian law:
a) manumissio inter amicos - manumission before the witnesses,
b) manumissio per epistulam - manumission through the letter addressed to the slave,
c) manumissio convivio adhibitonem - manumission during a feast, before the witnesses.
At first glance, it may seem like there were lots of ways to acquire Roman citizenship. And yet, due to their individual character and discretional/unilateral decision on which they rested, the Italians grew more and more impatient with how they were treated in an unequal (and enforcable by threats and sheer violence) relationship with the ever-expanding Roman state.
Of course, we shouldn't forget either that Roman encroachments on the traditional freedoms enjoyed by Italians tended to undermine their actual status. No wonder then that it led to the realisation that the whole patron-client realtionship was showing signs of becoming invalidated and even detrimental, and was turning into that of master and servant with the logically-motivated disenchantment of the client (vide: Badian, Foriegn Clientelae, 264-70 BCE, Gardner, Being a Roman Citizen).
The first instance we clearly hear of this discontent (beside concerted Roman effort to stall the immigrants of 190-180s BCE acting on and probably abusing their right, ius migrationis, to Rome (vide: Garnsey, Social Status and Legal Privilege in the Roman Empire)) comes from the times of the Gracchi brothers and M. Fulvius Flaccus.
In 125 BCE, one of the consuls for that year, M. Fulvius Flaccus, proposed the Italians be given the citizenship. Those who didn't want it might have instead ius provocatio (the right to appeal directly to the Roman people when the court/magisterial ruling felt unjust). Flaccus might've had an ulterior motive for making this offer, for under lex Sempronia of T. Gracchus a commission was set up to enquire into men's titles and those, be it Roman or Italian, who had alienated public land were to be forced to yield it up (vide: Keaveney, op. cit.). Flaccus was one of the commissioners and he had to face Italian resistance that brought his and his colleagues' work to a standstill. His proposal concerning the citizenship was supposed to have made the Italians more accommodating in the matter of the land. The very same year, the Latin colony of Fregellae revolted but the uprising was crushed and the city virtually razed to the ground. It is believed that the revolt was connected with the activities of Flaccus (vide: Jaczynowska: Dzieje Imperium Romanum). In 123 BCE Flaccus went back to Rome and lent his support to his political ally, C. Gracchus, who had just begun his first period as a tribune. In 122 BCE, during his second tribunate, Gracchus revealed his plan that the Latins should be admitted to the full citizenship while the allies would receive Latin status (vide: Keaveney, op. cit.).
Now, it is generally assumed that Flaccus was the first Roman to offer the citizenship to the Italians. Keaveney interestingly presents (but doesn't necessarily adhere to) an alternative view, first proposed by J.S. Richardson. Richardson begins from the assumption that T. Gracchus intended to give land to Italians as well as citizens. We happen to know that by 111 the ager publicus which the commissioners had distributed was made privatus. This for Richardson means difficulties. Land in Italy fell into the category of res mancipi which meant it could only be transferred to another citizen or to someone possessing commercium (already mentioned above). For Richardson this cattegory could only means the Latins. So, he concludes, in order to to transfer ager publicus to the allies, Tiberius would have to make citizens of them.
Whoever was the first one to put forth such a proposal, they didn't succeed, for T. Gracchus and C. Gracchus, as well as M. Fulvius Flaccus, were either killed by their political opponents or chose death because of them. However, the growing disconent among the Italians was such as the only way, it seemed, was to rebel.
In 95 BCE, the lex Licinia Mucia took yet another step in alienating and aggrevating the Italians. It was aimed at Italians who had illegaly usurped the citizenship and was intended to force them to revert to their proper status. It's clear that the Italians were now irrevocably commited to obtaining it [the citizenship] and had furnished the Romans with the clearest proofs of their desire, since, it seems, not only did the commoners but also the Italian elite, the principes Italicorum populorum, pushed for the cause (vide: Williamson, The Laws of the Roman People).
The spark that eventually resulted in an open war came in 91 BCE when the praetor Servilius was murdered in an Italian city of Picenum, along with every other Roman citizen residing in the city. From there, the rebellion spread first to the Marsi and the Paeliginians, and then to the other nations. Those cities, like Alba Fucens, who didn't want to join the rebels were soon put to the siege by them. All in all, twelve nations stood out in arms against Rome: the Marsi, the Paeligini, the Vestini, the Marrucini, the Picentes, the Frentani, the Hirpini, the Campani, the Venusini, the Apuli, the Lucani and the Samnites. This confederacy of nations tried to organise and as the federal capital was chosen Corfinium. As rebel headquarters the town was stocked with money, food and war materials. In Corfinum were also installed the organs of the new Government, with the Senate of 500 members as the most important one (vide: Alföldy, The Social History of Rome).
Initial setbacks (e.g. massacre at Asculum) forced the Romans to apply extreme measures. In 90 BCE, one of the tribunes, Q. Varius, set up a questio (ad hoc court) to try those who had encouraged or aided the allies in the revolt from Rome. That was the only active court at that time because, the lex Varia stated, while there was a tumultus Italicus, iudicia should be suspended. Very soon, as might be expected from a body set up at such a time and with such a brief, a disinterested search after the truth didn't always prevail, and the questio was used by the equites who manned it, as a means for personal vendettae (vide: Sherwin-White, The Roman Citizenship).
However, from 90/89 BCE, the Romans regained the initiative and eventually, in one way or another, subjugated the rebelled nations. The incentive that they put forth to appease them were the lex Iuilia de civitate Latinis et socii danda (89 BCE), the lex Plautia Papiria de civitate sociis danda (89 BCE) and the lex Calpurnia de civitate sociorum (90 BCE). In short, the laws granted Roman citizenship to Italian communities that had previously rebelled against Rome during the bellum sociale. It's also worth noting that many important figures made their careers of the war, such as C. Marius and L. Cornelius Cinna.
However, the Roman empire was still expanding and the number of peoples without the Roman citizenship only increased. It wasn't until 212 CE that the question was finally resolved (or was it?).
Until twentieth century, it was believed that the constitutio Antoniniana, as the law was called after the emperor Caracalla who issued it, granted citizenship to everyone in the Roman Empire. Even Mommsen in his monumental History of Rome claimed so. However, later findings revealed that the edict excluded one group of people, peregrini dediticii. The peregrini were free people who weren't Roman citizens or the Latins, but who lived within the boundaries of the Roman Empire. In other words, they belonged to foreign nations who were brought under the Roman supervision either through conquest or voluntary surrender and annexation. By this standard, there two categories of them:
1) peregrini certae civitatis - nations who voluntarily surrendered and were left with relative autonomy of the courts and local administration. Internally, they used their own laws, externally, with Latins and Romans, they used the Roman ius gentium (international law of sorts);
2) peregrini dediticii - nations subjugated through conquest. Their local laws and customs were considered null and void, their administration was destroyed, and their land became the ager publicus (public/state land).
That Caracalla had ulterior motive in this grand gesture, is beyond question. Officially, there were two reasons: religious and procedural-administrative.
The first one, according to the emperor, aimed at propitiating the religious people of the Empire and appeasing the gods. That reason was somewhat grounded in a practical aspect of it, that is, the assimilation of the ethnically foreign elements and distracting the subjects from the real reason (the emperor wanted to tax more people, as the state treasury was empty).
Procedural-administrative reason sought to eliminate individual petitions to the emperor concerning the citizenship.
All in all, it took over three more centuries for all of the subjects of the Empire to become its citizens. The peregrini dediticii were admitted to it by the emperor Justinian in 530 (vide: Taubenschlag, Kozubski, Historia i instytucje rzymskiego prawa prywatnego).
First of all, it's important to realize that, principally, only the people of the city of Rome were eligible for Roman citizenship, even after Rome's conquest of the entire Italy in the third and second century BCE. Contrary to the modern principle of territoriality of law, the Roman law ascribed to the principle of personality of law, which in practice meant that, no matter where they were, a person was a subject to the law of the society they belonged to (vide: Litewski, Rzymskie prawo prywatne). But as the Romans grew in power, so did the discontent of their Italian allies, who provided soldiers for their conquests and carried the burden of wars, and yet didn't receive equal privileges. As Keaveney neatly puts it
The second century was a period which witnessed great changes in the Roman world and inevitably the people of Italy were affected. The conditions under which they lived, whether at home or abroad, were such as to give them an enhanced view of their own worth. This naturally bred in them a discontent with their present position and sharpened their awareness of how even that was being undermined. They therefore sought amelioration and, conscious of what they had in common with the Romans, they aspired to be equal with them.
What, then, were the privileges that the Italians so longed for? There were lots of them, actually (vide: Kuryłowicz, Woliński, Rzymskie prawo prywatne):
1) full legal capacity;
2) in private law:
a) ius conubii - the right to marry a Roman citizen and thus becoming one,
b) ius commercii - the right to conclude contracts,
c) ius legis actio - the right to bring the action before the courts;
3) in public law:
a) the right to serve in the Roman legions,
b) ius suffragii - the right to cast a vote during the comitia plebis and the right to choose higher magistrates,
c) ius honorum - the right to be elected to magisterial offices,
d) potestas et dominium - the right to possess the quiritan property (dominium ex iure Quiritium) and the right to the Roman parental authority (patria potestas), which in the Regal period and the Early Republican period meant that a head of the household could, for instance, legally kill his son, if he deemed it appropriate,
e) testamenti factio - the right to draw up a will and the right to be a recipient of it.
There were several ways to acquire Roman citizenship but, as stated above, they had personal/individual character rather than general/territorial one. Also, they all had to follow certain procedures, both legal and symbolic (vide: Flaig, Ritualisierte Politik).
The first and most obvious way to become a Roman citizen was to be born from parents who were Roman citizens. A child, whose parents' status wasn't matrimonium iustum, had a legal status of its mother.
Another way was to grant citizenship by legal provisions or through a decision of higher magistrates. In the Republican period, that decision, in the form of the lex (bill), belonged to the comitia plebis but the Roman Senate had to approve it. In c. 89 BCE, the comitia plebis ceded their competence to the Senate, the consuls and the war commanders. For example, by the power granted to them by the Senate, the commanders could issue the diplomata militaria viritim. First known use, virtutis ergo, comes from C. Marius during the invasions of the German tribes. To enhance soldiers' efficacy, the most distinguished soldiers were granted Roman citizenship. Caesar extended its use to the whole town of Gades in Spain and the whole legion of Galia Cisalpina. This practice proliferated way up to the Principate period and the Imperial period, but the ruler wasn't bound by the leges anymore. It was his personal decision.
From the fourth century BCE onwards, the Romans, acting through the consuls, started to establish colonies, or colonia Romana. At first, their purpose was to create a defensive ring around Rome but later they were places established for veterans coming back from wars.
Last but not least, one could acquire citizienship through the manumissio (manumission), which meant the emancipation of a slave through their master's discretional power or by a legal provision. There were several kinds of manumissio:
1) ius civile:
a) manumissio vindicta - manumission before and with the permission of public authority,
b) manumissio censu - manumission through enrolling a slave on the citizens' list during the census,
c) manumissio testamento - manumission in the deceased's will,
d) manumissio in ecclesia - from the fourth century CE, manumission before the bishop and religious community;
2) praetorian law:
a) manumissio inter amicos - manumission before the witnesses,
b) manumissio per epistulam - manumission through the letter addressed to the slave,
c) manumissio convivio adhibitonem - manumission during a feast, before the witnesses.
At first glance, it may seem like there were lots of ways to acquire Roman citizenship. And yet, due to their individual character and discretional/unilateral decision on which they rested, the Italians grew more and more impatient with how they were treated in an unequal (and enforcable by threats and sheer violence) relationship with the ever-expanding Roman state.
To be consistently denied the equality they so ardently sought in the political sphere, cannot but have been galling to men who were now imbued with a strong sense of their own worth. (Keaveney)
Of course, we shouldn't forget either that Roman encroachments on the traditional freedoms enjoyed by Italians tended to undermine their actual status. No wonder then that it led to the realisation that the whole patron-client realtionship was showing signs of becoming invalidated and even detrimental, and was turning into that of master and servant with the logically-motivated disenchantment of the client (vide: Badian, Foriegn Clientelae, 264-70 BCE, Gardner, Being a Roman Citizen).
The first instance we clearly hear of this discontent (beside concerted Roman effort to stall the immigrants of 190-180s BCE acting on and probably abusing their right, ius migrationis, to Rome (vide: Garnsey, Social Status and Legal Privilege in the Roman Empire)) comes from the times of the Gracchi brothers and M. Fulvius Flaccus.
In 125 BCE, one of the consuls for that year, M. Fulvius Flaccus, proposed the Italians be given the citizenship. Those who didn't want it might have instead ius provocatio (the right to appeal directly to the Roman people when the court/magisterial ruling felt unjust). Flaccus might've had an ulterior motive for making this offer, for under lex Sempronia of T. Gracchus a commission was set up to enquire into men's titles and those, be it Roman or Italian, who had alienated public land were to be forced to yield it up (vide: Keaveney, op. cit.). Flaccus was one of the commissioners and he had to face Italian resistance that brought his and his colleagues' work to a standstill. His proposal concerning the citizenship was supposed to have made the Italians more accommodating in the matter of the land. The very same year, the Latin colony of Fregellae revolted but the uprising was crushed and the city virtually razed to the ground. It is believed that the revolt was connected with the activities of Flaccus (vide: Jaczynowska: Dzieje Imperium Romanum). In 123 BCE Flaccus went back to Rome and lent his support to his political ally, C. Gracchus, who had just begun his first period as a tribune. In 122 BCE, during his second tribunate, Gracchus revealed his plan that the Latins should be admitted to the full citizenship while the allies would receive Latin status (vide: Keaveney, op. cit.).
Now, it is generally assumed that Flaccus was the first Roman to offer the citizenship to the Italians. Keaveney interestingly presents (but doesn't necessarily adhere to) an alternative view, first proposed by J.S. Richardson. Richardson begins from the assumption that T. Gracchus intended to give land to Italians as well as citizens. We happen to know that by 111 the ager publicus which the commissioners had distributed was made privatus. This for Richardson means difficulties. Land in Italy fell into the category of res mancipi which meant it could only be transferred to another citizen or to someone possessing commercium (already mentioned above). For Richardson this cattegory could only means the Latins. So, he concludes, in order to to transfer ager publicus to the allies, Tiberius would have to make citizens of them.
Whoever was the first one to put forth such a proposal, they didn't succeed, for T. Gracchus and C. Gracchus, as well as M. Fulvius Flaccus, were either killed by their political opponents or chose death because of them. However, the growing disconent among the Italians was such as the only way, it seemed, was to rebel.
In 95 BCE, the lex Licinia Mucia took yet another step in alienating and aggrevating the Italians. It was aimed at Italians who had illegaly usurped the citizenship and was intended to force them to revert to their proper status. It's clear that the Italians were now irrevocably commited to obtaining it [the citizenship] and had furnished the Romans with the clearest proofs of their desire, since, it seems, not only did the commoners but also the Italian elite, the principes Italicorum populorum, pushed for the cause (vide: Williamson, The Laws of the Roman People).
The spark that eventually resulted in an open war came in 91 BCE when the praetor Servilius was murdered in an Italian city of Picenum, along with every other Roman citizen residing in the city. From there, the rebellion spread first to the Marsi and the Paeliginians, and then to the other nations. Those cities, like Alba Fucens, who didn't want to join the rebels were soon put to the siege by them. All in all, twelve nations stood out in arms against Rome: the Marsi, the Paeligini, the Vestini, the Marrucini, the Picentes, the Frentani, the Hirpini, the Campani, the Venusini, the Apuli, the Lucani and the Samnites. This confederacy of nations tried to organise and as the federal capital was chosen Corfinium. As rebel headquarters the town was stocked with money, food and war materials. In Corfinum were also installed the organs of the new Government, with the Senate of 500 members as the most important one (vide: Alföldy, The Social History of Rome).
Initial setbacks (e.g. massacre at Asculum) forced the Romans to apply extreme measures. In 90 BCE, one of the tribunes, Q. Varius, set up a questio (ad hoc court) to try those who had encouraged or aided the allies in the revolt from Rome. That was the only active court at that time because, the lex Varia stated, while there was a tumultus Italicus, iudicia should be suspended. Very soon, as might be expected from a body set up at such a time and with such a brief, a disinterested search after the truth didn't always prevail, and the questio was used by the equites who manned it, as a means for personal vendettae (vide: Sherwin-White, The Roman Citizenship).
However, from 90/89 BCE, the Romans regained the initiative and eventually, in one way or another, subjugated the rebelled nations. The incentive that they put forth to appease them were the lex Iuilia de civitate Latinis et socii danda (89 BCE), the lex Plautia Papiria de civitate sociis danda (89 BCE) and the lex Calpurnia de civitate sociorum (90 BCE). In short, the laws granted Roman citizenship to Italian communities that had previously rebelled against Rome during the bellum sociale. It's also worth noting that many important figures made their careers of the war, such as C. Marius and L. Cornelius Cinna.
However, the Roman empire was still expanding and the number of peoples without the Roman citizenship only increased. It wasn't until 212 CE that the question was finally resolved (or was it?).
Until twentieth century, it was believed that the constitutio Antoniniana, as the law was called after the emperor Caracalla who issued it, granted citizenship to everyone in the Roman Empire. Even Mommsen in his monumental History of Rome claimed so. However, later findings revealed that the edict excluded one group of people, peregrini dediticii. The peregrini were free people who weren't Roman citizens or the Latins, but who lived within the boundaries of the Roman Empire. In other words, they belonged to foreign nations who were brought under the Roman supervision either through conquest or voluntary surrender and annexation. By this standard, there two categories of them:
1) peregrini certae civitatis - nations who voluntarily surrendered and were left with relative autonomy of the courts and local administration. Internally, they used their own laws, externally, with Latins and Romans, they used the Roman ius gentium (international law of sorts);
2) peregrini dediticii - nations subjugated through conquest. Their local laws and customs were considered null and void, their administration was destroyed, and their land became the ager publicus (public/state land).
That Caracalla had ulterior motive in this grand gesture, is beyond question. Officially, there were two reasons: religious and procedural-administrative.
The first one, according to the emperor, aimed at propitiating the religious people of the Empire and appeasing the gods. That reason was somewhat grounded in a practical aspect of it, that is, the assimilation of the ethnically foreign elements and distracting the subjects from the real reason (the emperor wanted to tax more people, as the state treasury was empty).
Procedural-administrative reason sought to eliminate individual petitions to the emperor concerning the citizenship.
All in all, it took over three more centuries for all of the subjects of the Empire to become its citizens. The peregrini dediticii were admitted to it by the emperor Justinian in 530 (vide: Taubenschlag, Kozubski, Historia i instytucje rzymskiego prawa prywatnego).
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