Salvo iure gentium: Roman Citizenship and Civic Life before and after the Constitutio Antoniniana

Abstract

This article explores the relationship between Roman citizenship and the maintenance of civic life as an essential factor for the continuity of urban centres in the eastern Mediterranean between the imperial period and Late Antiquity. Augustus had already specified that Roman citizens from Cyrenaica had to provide local contributions (λειτουργειν) in their cities of origin as Greeks. Marcus Aurelius and Commodus later remarked in the Tabula Banasitana that those enfranchised were not granted a reduction in the taxes paid to the Roman people and fiscus because “the laws of the community remained intact” (salvo iure gentis). I argue that an analogous clause is conceivable in the Constitutio Antoniniana of Caracalla in AD 212. Taking Asia Minor as a case study and focusing on the cities of Termessos and Aphrodisias, I seek to assess the role of these new Roman citizens in the preservation of their places of origin during the third century.