“BECOMING ROMAN, BECOMING BARBARIAN”:

ROMAN CITIZENSHIP AND THE ASSIMILATION OF BARBARIANS

INTO THE LATE ROMAN WORLD1

Ralph W. Mathisen

One of the great questions that have confronted historians for the past
1500 years is the nature of and reasons for the decline and fall of the West-
ern Roman Empire in the 5th century ce. All too often, this question has
been posed in the context of opposition between the Romans and the
barbarians who eventually established their own kingdoms in the West-
ern Empire. However, when looked at from the perspectives of citizenship
and identity, a rather different picture emerges. Rather than being invari-
ably viewed as ‘outsiders’, barbarians had a long history of immigrating
into the Roman Empire and then becoming integrated under the social
and legal umbrella of Rome. In the 3rd century ce, Rome’s inclusive citi-
zenship policy became extended to include new barbarian settlers. By the
time of the barbarian invasions of the 5th century, Romans and barbar-
ians had more similarities than differences, a consideration that helps to
explain the largely non-violent nature of the barbarian occupation of the
Western Roman Empire.
At the beginning of the Roman Empire, Roman citizenship was an elite
legal status to which certain rights, privileges, and obligations accrued
under civil and criminal law.2 For example, in private life, citizens (or
cives Romani) could marry, make wills and carry out business under the
protection of Roman law. Under the criminal code, citizens could not
be questioned under torture, had the right of appeal, and if sentenced
to death, were given a simple execution rather than crucifixion or death
in the arena. However, not everyone living in the Roman Empire at this
time was a citizen. Far from it. The majority of the free population in the

1 Sections of this study draw upon Mathisen 2006, © 2006 by the American Historical
Association.
2 For Roman citizenship in general, see Sherwin-White 1979; Sherwin-White 1972; Gau-
thier 1986; Nicolet 1980; Nicolet 1989; Donati Giacomini and Poma 1996; Gardner 1993; Noy
2000; de Ste-Croix 1981: 453–461; Ratti 2002; Kaser 1971: 1.279–82. Many studies of Roman
law barely mention citizenship status, e.g., Brunner 1906: 157–179; Brunner 1928: 9, 128;
Mitteis 1965: 19.

191-218_Bosma et al_f9.indd 191 5/8/2013 4:53:00 PM

 192 ralph w. mathisen

empire lived in the provinces and did not hold citizenship. These people
were known as provinciales (provincials) or peregrini (foreigners) and they
remained subject to whatever legal system was in force in their communi-
ties at the time of their annexation by Rome.
One of the great successes of the Roman Empire was that Roman citi-
zenship became available to everyone living in the empire. The usual ways
for provinciales to become citizens was by becoming members of city
councils or by serving in the auxilia, the provincial branch of the Roman
army (Figures 1–2), the rationale for this being that citizenship should be
a reward either for services expected or services already rendered.
Even slaves (servi) had the opportunity to become citizens. Slaves were
frequently manumitted and thus became free. A freed slave of a provincial
gained the legal status of a provincial, and accordingly had the citizen-
ship opportunities that were available to provincials, while a freed slave
of a Roman was given the legal status of libertus, with partial citizenship
rights. The children of a libertus gained full citizenship rights. Thus, there
was a regular filtering upwards of individuals from lesser to higher legal
status, and accordingly, a constant increase in the number of full Roman
citizens.

The Antonine Constitution

As the centuries wore on, the citizen body increased due to grants of
citizenship to provincial army veterans and local elites, and the passing
on of citizenship rights by inheritance. Thus, citizenship and access to
Roman civil law (ius civile), became less and less a special status and more
the lowest common denominator. This process culminated with the issu-
ing in 212 ce of the Antonine Constitution, through which the emperor
Caracalla (211 to 217) granted citizenship to nearly all of the inhabitants
of the Roman Empire who did not already possess it.3 The descendants
of previous barbarian settlers would have become citizens along with
everyone else. The only surviving copy of Caracalla’s law, a papyrus Greek
translation of the Latin original, is unfortunately very fragmentary,4 but
the crucial words translates as, “I grant to all those in the Roman world the
citizenship of the Romans”. Many additions have been proposed for the

3 For the Constitutio Antoniniana, see Condurachi 1958; Sasse 1958; Lukaszewicz 1990; Bell
1947; Hagedorn 1996; Donati Giacomini and Poma 1996: 165; Garnsey 2004.
4 For the text, see Riccobono1968: no. 88, 445–9; Heichelheim 1940.

191-218_Bosma et al_f9.indd 192 5/8/2013 4:53:00 PM

191-218_Bosma et al_f9.indd 193
“becoming roman, becoming barbarian”

Figure 1. Diploma granting Roman citizenship, 98 ce. Credits: James Egbert, Introduction to the Study of Latin Inscriptions (New York,
193

1896), p. 357. http://www.vroma.org/images/mcmanus_images/diploma.jpg.

5/8/2013 4:53:00 PM
 194 ralph w. mathisen

gaps in the text,5 but all that can be currently stated for certain is that a
class of persons called the dediticii were excluded from the grant.
The Antonine Constitution grant applied to all those living in the
Roman Empire at the time it was made, and most discussions about
Roman citizenship simply stop at this point,6 on the assumption that once
everyone who was eligible had Roman citizenship, citizen status ceased
to be a meaningful component of personal or legal identity in the Roman
world. Indeed, modern writers have often downplayed the significance of
Caracalla’s grant and have suggested that henceforth Roman citizenship
had little value.7 For example, Peter Brown suggests: “The brittle privileges
and self-respect once associated with the notion of citizenship slipped
away”.8 According to Peter Garnsey, “for some modern observers, it was
all over for Roman citizenship after Caracalla’s edict . . . citizenship had
lost whatever residual value it formerly possessed”.9
However, in practice it took a while for Caracalla’s edict to be fully
implemented10 and there still were some loose ends. Some were short-
term and did not outlast the 3rd century. For one thing, it took a while for
the significance of the law to penetrate all levels of the bureaucracy and,
perhaps as a consequence of sheer bureaucratic inertia, formal grants of
citizenship continued to be made, at least for a time.11 In addition, there
are continued occasional 3rd century references to groups, clubs or Roman
citizens, such as the ‘Roman citizens of Mainz’,12 as if the distinction still
meant something. There also are occasional references to peregrini resi-
dent in the empire who did not seem to have been citizens and did not

5 For example, “I therefore grant Roman citizenship to all the foreigners (peregrini) in the
world”: Abbott and Johnson (1968) 1926: no. 192.
6 E.g. Donati Giacomini and Poma 1996: 165.
7 Sherwin-White 1979: 444: it “introduced no material alteration”; Garnsey 2004 dis-
misses it as “an accident of history” (133), a “whim” (135) that “came out of the blue” (137);
Williams 1979: 69–72, deems it an “impulsive measure”.
8 Brown 1992: 154. Note also, e.g. Kunkel 1973: 79ff; Sollner 1980: 97; Donati Giacomini
and Poma 1996: 165; Gardner 1993: 187; Sherwin-White 1979: 445.
9 Garnsey 2004: 140.
10 See Garnsey 2004: 143, for “geographically, ethnically, and culturally marginal people
allowed to slip through the net”.
11 Herodian (8.4.2) notes that in 238 ce, the inhabitants of Aquileia received “in place of
war, peace, and a sharing of Roman citizenship”. For grants in military diplomas as a “combi-
nation of utility and legal archaism”, see Sherwin-White 1979: 388.
12 For example, Riese 1914: 4.2125, 236 = Corpus inscriptionum latinarum [= CIL] 13.6733:
“Marcellinius Placidinus d. c(ivium) R(omanorum) Mog(untiaco) Tacito et Aemiliano cos”
(276 ce). Also Riese 1914 = CIL 13.6769: “. . . T. Florius Saturninus . . . allectus in ordinem
c(ivium) R(omanorum) Mog(untiaco)” (222–35 ce). See Sherwin-White 1979: 387.

191-218_Bosma et al_f9.indd 194 5/8/2013 4:53:00 PM

 “becoming roman, becoming barbarian” 195

belong to any of the identified non-citizen categories,13 but given that the
few examples are early, this too may be a case of archaism.
Over the longer term, citizenship continued to be granted. In particu-
lar, slaves continued to be freed and as a consequence became eligible to
become cives Romani. Several late Roman laws discuss how liberti, or even
servi, became full cives Romani.14 A law of 349, for example, decreed that
manumitted mothers, “for whom, of course, the rights of Roman citizen-
ship had been obtained”, could have their cases heard in court, as could
any freed sons and daughters who had become “Roman citizens in a simi-
lar manner”.15 In 447, a novel (new law) of the emperor Valentinian III
(425 to 455) spoke of the testamentary rights of “a libertus, who will have
obtained the privilege of Roman citizenship”.16 In exceptional cases,
slaves could become citizens directly, without any intermediate process.17
Therefore, for some people the process of becoming a citizen still counted.
Indeed nearly all, if not all, of the acquisitions of citizenship attested after
212 resulted from promotions from servile to free status.

Proliferating Definitions of Citizenship

After Roman citizenship became essentially universal, multiple defini-

tions of what it meant to be a civis proliferated, and dual citizenship of
various forms was commonly held.18 People generally no longer identified
themselves as cives Romani, but as other kinds of cives. For example, there
always had been a concept of municipal citizenship.19 The territory of the
Roman Empire was subdivided into a multitude of municipalities under
the jurisdiction of civitates (cities), which were responsible for oversee-
ing much of Roman administration at the local level. Nominally, every
Roman citizen also was a citizen of a city. A large section of 6th century

13 Note Riese 1914: 1.237, 1 = CIL 13.4679, “. . . Genio pagi Dervet(ensis) peregrini qui
posuer(unt) vico Soliciae . . . Lupo et Maximo cos” (232 ce); see also Garnsey 2004: 143, for
“geographically, ethnically, and culturally marginal people allowed to slip through the net”.
14 A point missed, e.g. by Liebeschuetz 1998: 135.
15 Codex Theodosianus [=CTh] 8.13.1 (349).
16 Novella Valentiniani 25 (ad 447) of Novel (New Law) 25 of the emperor Valentinian
III (ad 425–455).
17 E.g., CTh 9.21.2.1 (321); CTh 4.7.1 (321).
18 See van den Bergh 1992.
19 For cives of cities, see CTh 1.10.4 (391 ce), 11.16.6 (346 ce) (Constantinople); 12.1.17 (329)
(“consensu civium vel curiae”), 12.1.53 (362 ce) (“eiusdem oppidi cives”), 15.5.3 (409) (“ex qua-
cumque civitate in aliud oppidum . . . cives”); 15.5.4 (424 ce) (“civium intra propriam civi-
tatem”). Ammianus Marcellinus, Res gestae 19.2.14, 27.3.2 (“magna civium laetitia”: Rome).

191-218_Bosma et al_f9.indd 195 5/8/2013 4:53:00 PM

 196 ralph w. mathisen

Justinian’s Digest (50.1) was devoted to establishing origo and domicilium

in a civitas (city) for all the inhabitants of the empire, and hence liability
for municipal duties and taxes.20 Indeed, to be a civis of a civitas was prob-
ably the fundamental status that had made persons eligible for Roman
citizenship via the Antonine Constitution in the first place.
In the late empire, civic citizenship continued to provide an impor-
tant means of personal identification.21 For example, in the late 4th cen-
tury the Gallic poet Ausonius wrote: “I love Bordeaux, I esteem Rome: I
am a citizen of the one, a consul in both; my cradle was here, my curule
chair there”. Even Rhine frontier villagers in 230 ce could call themselves
“Roman citizens and inhabitants of Taunus by paternal descent”.22
In addition, there were forms of regional identity. For example, the
Digest cites examples of those having a regional legal identity as Cam-
panian or Pontic.23 One could be a ‘citizen’ of a province or region, such
as Africa, Gaul or Spain, a status that has received virtually no attention
in scholarship.24 The law even refers to ‘citizens’ of a province, a usage
also found in popular parlance with references to citizens of Africa, Gaul
or Spain.25 Indeed, during the late empire people increasingly identified
themselves as inhabitants of provinces.26
Legally, the term provinciales usually referred generically to all non-
servile inhabitants of provinces, and many imperial constitutions were
addressed simply ‘Ad provinciales’ (to the provincials).27 In addition, in
specific cases provinciales could be distinguished from cives of cities or
from senators.28 Selected provinciales also had a collective identity as

20 See Jones 1968: 136, for the assumption “that all Roman citizens are municipes of some
municipium”.
21  See Garnsey 2004: 137: “local citizenships were tolerated”. See also El-Abbadi 1962.
22 Riese 1914: 3.1176, 132; see Sherwin-White 1979: 388.
23 Digest 50.1.1.2: “Qui ex duobus igitur Campanis parentibus natus est, Campanus
est . . . Celsus etiam refert Ponticis ex beneficio Pompeii Magni competere, ut qui Pontica
matre natus esset, Ponticus esset”.
24 For example, Gregory of Tours, Gloria confessorum 69.1: “Africanae provinciae civis”;
Hydatius, Chronicon 217, s.a. 462: “Agrippinus Gallus et comes et civis”.
25 CTh 1.34.1 (400): “cives . . . provinciae”. Popular usage: Gregory of Tours, Gloria confes-
sorum 69.1; Hydatius, Chronicon 217, s.a. 462: and the Vita Eugendi 2: Sources chrétiennes
vol. 142 (Paris, 1968), 364–435.
26 See Roueché 2000: 572, “many people chose to describe themselves as inhabitants of
their province . . . rather than as citizens of particular towns”.
27 For example, CTh 1.5.1, 1.16.6–7, 2.26.3, 2.30.1, 7.4.26, 7.9.1, 7.13.7–8, 7.13.16, 7.20.8, and
throughout; also 8.10.2, 11.8.3.1.
28 CTh 4.13.5 (358 ce): “vectigalium quartam provincialibus et urbibus Africanis . . . conce-
dimus”; 2.1.4 (365 ce): “si senatores aliquid a provincialibus poscunt”.

191-218_Bosma et al_f9.indd 196 5/8/2013 4:53:01 PM

 “becoming roman, becoming barbarian” 197

members of a provincial council.29 A ruling of 385 went so far as to specify

that no one was to serve in any office “within that province in which he
was considered to be a provincial and a citizen”.30 A law of 399 ce, for
example, distinguished the munera (obligations) which applied to cities,
from those incumbent on provinces.31 Provincials had an identity sepa-
rate from citizens of cities with regard to vectigales (tax imposts), military
requisitions, munera (public obligations, such as maintaining the imperial
post system), assigning tabularii (imperial accountants), making public
benefactions, pursuing lawsuits, sending embassies to court, and obtaining
favours from imperial administrators.32 Some particular responsibilities
incumbent upon provincials included monitoring provincial governors,
sending petitions to the emperor, promulgating imperial initiatives, and
renewing their loyalty oaths to the emperor at annual provincial coun-
cil meetings.33 All this seems to separate the two statuses of provincial
resident and provincial citizen. The status of civis of a province, then, was
based on residence and obligation, not on a juridical status parallel to the
pre-imperial civis Romanus.
The adoption of Christianity as a state religion during the 4th century
brought additional ways of defining citizen status. As Christian clerics,
administrators and emperors became increasingly intolerant of anyone
who was not an orthodox Christian, the possession of full citizenship
came to be based on Christian confessional status. Pagans, Jews and her-
etics suffered a diminution of their citizenship rights and their ability to
avail themselves of Roman civil law: they could “pursue the decisions of
no judge in private business”.34 In a metaphorical sense, the Christian
concept of being a citizen of some supernal community, such as heaven
or the ‘City of God’, was similar to, and even replaced, the classical

29 CTh 1.16.2 (317 ce): “decreta provincialium”; 11.20.4.3; 12.12.12.1 (392 ce): “Ad provinciale
concilium in una frequentiore totius provinciae urbe cunctos volumus convenire, qui prima-
tum honorantur insignibus”; 12.12.13 (392 ce): “in consilium communia vota deducunt”; 12.12.14
(408 ce): “omnium legationum provincialium instructiones”. See Larsen 1934. Multi-provincial
diocesan councils also existed: CTh 12.12.9; Larsen 1934: 213; and Zeller 1905.
30 Codex Justinianus [= CJ] 9.29.3 (385 ce): “Ne quis . . . intellegat gerendae . . . administra-
tionis officium intra eam provinciam, in qua provincialis et civis habetur”.
31 CTh 3.1.8 (399 ce): “hi, qui imposita fuga munera civitatis provinciarumque destituunt”
(“those who, having taken flight, disregard the obligations of a city or the provinces”); see also
CTh 12.12.11 (386 ce): “si quis vel civitatis vel provinciae” (“if anyone either from a city or from
a province”).
32 See CTh 4.13.5 (358); 7.4.26 (401); 7.4.1 (325); 3.1.8 (399); 6.29.5 (359); 1.16.2 (317); 8.2.5
(401); 8.12.3 (316); 8.12.8 (415); 11.30.63 (405).
33 Larsen 1934; Ando 2000: 359–361.
34 E.g., Novella Theodosii 3.7 (438); see Lo Nero 2001; and N.Q. King 1961: 95.

191-218_Bosma et al_f9.indd 197 5/8/2013 4:53:01 PM

 198 ralph w. mathisen

philosophical sense of being a citizen of the cosmopolis. Christians were

“citizens of the heavenly Jerusalem”.35
Ethnicity could also provide a form of citizenship. Mid-3rd century
Thracians, for example, could identify themselves ethnically as “Roman
citizens and Bessi”.36 Further, in late Roman popular usage, barbarians
were recognized as holding a form of ethnic citizenship. For example, in
423 Flavius Faustininianus described his deceased wife on an epitaph at
Florence, Italy, as a civis Alamanna (citizen of the Alamanni).37 The Arian
Modaharius, who debated bishop Basilius of Aix in the 470s, was depicted
as a civis Gothus (Gothic citizen),38 and a soldier buried near Budapest
had on his epitaph, “I am a civis Francus (Frankish citizen) and a Roman
soldier in arms”.39 However, this usage never appears in any extant Roman
legal sources and it is unclear what being a barbarian ‘civis’ meant. It may
have been the functional or metaphorical equivalent of the civic or pro-
vincial citizenship of Romans. It also may have had as much or more to do
with ethnic identity than with legality or politics. Personal identification
with a city, a province, a religion or a barbarian people could therefore be
expressed in terms of ‘citizenship’ that in no way conflicted with holding
Roman citizenship.
These various forms of citizenship created multiple legal identities
whereby people who were Roman citizens could also be designated by
their municipal, provincial, ethnic or religious status. When reading pri-
mary sources, it is not always clear what kind of citizen is meant, and
it should not be presumed that all references to ‘citizens’ necessarily
imply the meaning ‘Roman citizens’. Indeed, the late-4th century histo-
rian Ammianus Marcellinus even used the term cives Romani to refer to
citizens of the city of Rome as opposed to those of the Roman Empire.40
Another element of legal identity relates to the legal jurisdiction under
which these different types of citizens fell. Even though ius civile could be
used by all Roman citizens, not all of them did so. Parallel legal systems,
variously referred to as provincial, vulgar, civic or common law, contin-

35 For example, Paul, Ephesians 2.19: “non estis hospites et advenae sed estis cives sancto-
rum et domestici Dei” (“you are not guests and newcomers but you are citizens of sainthood
and domestics of God”); and Augustine, De Civitate Dei. 22.17: “civis supernae Hierusalem”
(“the citizen of the heavenly Jerusalem”). See Garnsey 2004: 150–155; and Clévenot 1988.
36 CIL 3.3505, 7533, 14214; Année epigraphique (1924) nos. 142–8 (237–246); see Sherwin-
White 1979: 56, 210, 269, 387, 269.
37 CIL 11.1731 (423).
38 Sidonius Apollinaris, Epistulae 7.6.2–3.
39 CIL 11.3576 (Aquincum, near Budapest).
40 Ammianus Marcellinus 27.9.9; also Novella Valentiniani 5 (440).

191-218_Bosma et al_f9.indd 198 5/8/2013 4:53:01 PM

 “becoming roman, becoming barbarian” 199

Figure 2. Epitaph of 423 ce of an unnamed “civis Alamanna” (“Alamannic citizen”)

from Florence. Credits: Corpus inscriptionum Latinarum, vol. 11 (Berlin, 1888),
no. 1731.

ued to be valid alongside Roman civil law.41 Even in the 6th century, the
Digest acknowledged: “Those practices that have been approved by long
practice and observed for many years are preserved as law, as if by a tacit
agreement of the citizens, no less than those laws that are written”.42 In
addition, the official recognition of the Christian church brought with it
an acknowledgment of Christian legal jurisdiction in cases involving the
maintenance of proper Christian belief and behaviour. The result was a
growing body of canon law that sometimes competed with or contra-
dicted Roman civil and criminal law.43

Whence the Peregrini?

In 212 ce, virtually all the peregrini resident in the Roman Empire became
Roman citizens, but what about the peregrini who arrived after 212? Did
the continuing influx of barbarian peregrini from outside the empire

41  For law other than ius civile after 212, see Levy 1943; Levy 1956; Stühff 1966; Sirks 1996:
150 (“Roman and indigenous law still coexisted”); Carrié 2005: 271–272 (“Roman power pre-
served for local laws the same place that they occupied . . . within provincial law”); Kunkel
1973: 79; Garnsey 2004: 138–141, 146. For a dissenting opinion, see Honoré 2002: 80: after
212, “the contrast between the civil law and common custom was now of purely historical
interest”.
42 Digest 1.3.35.
43 See, e.g. Gaudemet 1985.

191-218_Bosma et al_f9.indd 199 5/8/2013 4:53:01 PM

 200 ralph w. mathisen

constitute a new class of non-citizens, did they become citizens by some

as yet undefined process, or were they absorbed into the population that
was covered under ius civile by some other means? During the Principate,
there had been established procedures by which provincial peregrini
could become Roman citizens.44 Were there similar procedures after 212
for foreign, barbarian, peregrini to become citizens, or—if they did not
become full citizens—to be covered by Roman ius civile? Once again, dis-
cussion in literature of the legal status of late Roman barbarians in gen-
eral and barbarian immigrants in particular has been very sparse.45 The
suggestion that they were still classified as dediticii who were excluded
from Caracalla’s citizenship grant cannot be sustained,46 as by the time
of Caracalla’s grant, dediticii were legally defined as disadvantaged freed-
men, not defeated enemies.47
In part, the lack of discussion of this issue is no surprise, for there is no
clear exposition of the post-212 status of peregrini in the thousands upon
thousands of surviving laws. This can mean only one of two things: either
the peregrini remained in some kind of legal limbo, or we have simply
been mistaken regarding what kinds of legislation we would ‘expect’ to
find dealing with them. Given the Roman penchant for legal precision, the
former seems unlikely. So just what was the legal status of these barbarian
immigrants? Did they have access to Roman ius civile? Were they able to
make the transition from peregrinus to civis Romanus?
The legal or citizenship status of barbarian settlers never has been
convincingly elucidated.48 Lacking direct evidence for barbarians having
been made citizens, we might take a different approach and investigate
whether foreign peregrini (nearly all of whom would have been barbar-
ians) who resided or settled in the Roman Empire, were able to make use
of Roman ius civile? Further, if so, to what extent could they do so, and
did they need to be Roman citizens? These questions can be approached
by looking for actual examples of barbarians using various elements of

44 Gaius, Institutionum 1.93; see de Visscher 1958; also Sherwin-White 1979: 310, “barbar-
ian peasantry secured [citizenship] by long service in the provincial militia”.
45 Note, in particular, Demougeot 1981; Demougeot 1984; Liebeschuetz 1998; Garnsey
2004.
46 Garnsey 2004: 133–134.
47 For the peregrini dediticii as disadvantaged freedmen who were specifically excluded
from receiving citizenship, see Gaius, Institutionum 1.13–14; also Sasse 1958: 104–110; Jones
1968; Sherwin-White 1979: 380–398.
48 E.g. Heather 1991: 113, suggests that groups from beyond the frontier submitted “not
as full citizens but as dependent subjects”. However, with regard to this question, now see
Mathisen 2006.

191-218_Bosma et al_f9.indd 200 5/8/2013 4:53:01 PM

 “becoming roman, becoming barbarian” 201

Roman law, because the following model will be based on the premise
that Roman law did have a place for foreigners who settled in the Roman
Empire.
It has at times been suggested that by some unknown process, a num-
ber of barbarians became Roman citizens.49 For example, Demougeot
conjectured that barbarians who became members of the field army, held
Roman military or civilian office, or married a Roman, must somehow
have become citizens.50 Demougeot also suggested that barbarians held
some kind of special ‘barbarian citizenship’ that limited them only to
military careers.51 However, this kind of halfway house is totally unprec-
edented (not to mention undocumented) in Roman law.
An exhaustive search of sources turns up only a handful of references
to barbarians being described as Romans or Roman citizens. In 383, the
orator Themistius opined that Goths were “no longer called barbarians
but Romans”, a sentiment seconded by Pacatus, who stated in 389 that
Theodosius I (379 to 395) ordered defeated barbarian soldiers to “become
Roman”.52 It is difficult to imagine how ‘becoming Roman’ would not have
involved some degree of Roman citizenship. Citizenship was specifically
mentioned by Claudian, who in his panegyric to Stilicho in 400 observed
of Rome, “She calls together as citizens those whom she has conquered”.53
Even if one argues that Claudian was speaking historically, there is noth-
ing to suggest that this policy did not continue into his own time. This
view further continued to remain current in the mid-6th century, when
the panegyricist Corippus said, in a North African context, “Whatever gen-
tes the Roman Empire sees being faithful and subject, it considers them
to be Latin citizens”.54 More specifically, the rhetor Synesius stated that
Theodosius I “considered the Goths worthy of citizenship”.55 However,
was Synesius suggesting that Theodosius actually ‘made’ Goths citizens,

49 E.g. Sherwin-White 1979: 380ff; Soraci 1974; Blockley 1982; Demougeot 1981: 387;
Heather 1991: 164–165; and Liebeschuetz 1998: 138 (“given . . . a mere formality”). But Sirks
1996: 149, states simply, “they did not become Roman citizens”.
50 Arguing by assertion, with much use of “asssurément”, “implicitément”, “indéniable”,
“vraisemblablement” and “sans doute”: Demougeot 1981: 384–387.
51 Demougeot 1981: 384.
52 Themistius, Orationes 167.211–212; Pacat. Pan.Lat. 2/12.36.4, “iussisti esse Romanam”.
53 Claudian, De consulatu Stilichonis 3.152–3: “civesque vocavit /quos domuit”.
54 Corippus, Iohannide 8.461–462: “cives putat esse latinos”.
55 “πoλιτε∴αs ≥ξιoυ”: De regno 21/25C: 50, 13–14; Terzaghi 1944: 50, ll.13–14. Liebeschuetz
1998: 135, suggests that ‘politeia’ here “has acquired a new meaning”, being applied to “non-
naturalized barbarians who had acquired the right to live within the empire”. The old
meaning of ‘citizenship’, however, seems to fit perfectly well.

191-218_Bosma et al_f9.indd 201 5/8/2013 4:53:02 PM

 202 ralph w. mathisen

or merely that he thought they deserved citizenship? The only person of

barbarian ancestry to be specifically called a Roman citizen was the Mas-
ter of Soldiers Stilicho, the son of a Roman mother and a Vandal father,
of whom Claudian said: “Rome rejoiced that she deserved to have you
as a citizen”.56 Nevertheless, how Stilicho gained this status—whether
through his mother, through some action of his own or just by default—
is not recorded. We still have no examples of barbarians actually being
‘made’ citizens, nor are we told what these general statements about bar-
barians being considered to be ‘Romans’ or ‘citizens’ meant in the real
world of Roman law.
One very widespread way in which barbarians participated in Roman
legal procedures was related to land holding and the tax liabilities on
property. During the Principate, hundreds of thousands of barbarians
settled on Roman land.57 Merely by residing within Roman provinces,
they would have gained the status of provincialis, which would immedi-
ately have made them eligible for service in the auxilia, and hence for
enrolment as cives Romani within a very short time. Thus, by a relatively
rapid process, many thousands of barbarians would have been quickly
incorporated into the citizen ranks with a minimum of fuss. In 212 these
barbarians (or their descendants) would, along with everyone else, have
been enrolled as cives Romani. There was thus a long tradition of the rela-
tively painless integration of many ‘barbarians’ into the Roman world.58
As noted by the historian Cassius Dio in the 220s, “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 realizing it”.59
The settlement of barbarians continued in the Late Empire. In 297
to 298 ce, a panegyricist of Emperor Constantius Chlorus (293 to 306)
reported that “captive processions of barbarians” were “distributed to the
provincials and conducted to the cultivation of deserted lands assigned to
them”, where they attended markets, paid taxes and were liable to military
service.60 A lead proof (Figure 3) of a non-extant gold medallion show-
ing barbarian families entering the Roman Empire at Mainz is thought

56 Claudian, De consulatu Stilichonis 3.180–1: “Roma . . . gaudebat . . . quod te . . . meruis-

set . . . civem”. His ancestry: Claudian De consulatu Stilichonis 1.35–39; Orosius, Historiae
Adversus paganos 7.38.1; Johannes Antiochenus, fragm. 187; Jerome, Epistulae 123.16;
PLRE I, 853.
57 For the long history of this practice, see e.g. Chrysos 1989; Claude 1988; MacMullen
1963; Okamura 1996; and with a comprehensive list, Ste-Croix 1981: 245–249, 509–518.
58 See e.g. Metzler et al. 1995; Woolf 1998; Whittaker 1997.
59 Dio Cassius 56.18.2.
60 Panegyrici Latini 8/5.9.3; Nixon and Saylor Rodgers 1994: 121–122.

191-218_Bosma et al_f9.indd 202 5/8/2013 4:53:02 PM

 “becoming roman, becoming barbarian” 203

Figure 3. Nineteenth-century plaster cast, now in Lyon, of the plomb de Lyon, a

lead proof for the reverse of a gold medallion to be issued in Trier, probably in
297. In the upper register, defeated barbarians beg for mercy from the emper-
ors and begin to depart for resettlement at right; in the lower register, migrating
barbarians carrying their belongings cross the bridge over the Rhine at Mainz.
Credit: Public domain photograph. Cf. A. Steyvert, Nouvelle Histoire de Lyon,
vol. 1 (Lyon, 1895) p. 450b, fig. 8.

to depict this very event.61 Further, in 310 a panegyricist congratulated

Constantine I because “Frankish nations have been settled in deserted
areas of Gaul and sustain the peace of the Roman Empire by their culti-
vation and its military by their levies”.62

61 Bastien 1989. The possibility that this scene represents repatriated Roman captives is
belied by the depiction of barbarian deditio (surrender) in the upper register (Pl. 2).
62 Panegyrici Latini. 7/6.6.

191-218_Bosma et al_f9.indd 203 5/8/2013 4:53:02 PM

 Hoje: cidadania europeia, imigrantes das colônias,
refugiados…

204 ralph w. mathisen

The historian Ammianus reported that in the 360s and 370s Alamanni
were relocated to Gaul, where they became “subject to taxes and a source
of income”, and to Italy, “where, having received fertile fields, they now
cultivate the Po as taxpayers”.63 Many of these barbarian settlers had the
status of colonus (tenant farmer), a quite respectable Roman legal status.
The Augustan History, for example, claims that after Claudius II’s defeat of
the Goths c. 270, “the provinces were filled with Gothic farmers; the Goth
became a colonus”.64 Ausonius in 368 spoke of “fields recently harvested
by Sarmatian coloni”.65 Indeed, barbarian coloni are directly attested in
legal sources. A ruling of 409 noted that groups of Scirians were settled as
coloni in the Eastern Empire. They were granted special protection from
enslavement and from being put to work on city public works projects.66
Barbarian settlers such as these, farmed Roman land either as tenant
farmers or as landowners in their own right, statuses that were certainly
covered under ius civile.67
In addition to mass settlements, individual barbarians gained title to
Roman land through actual or potential military service. By the 3rd cen-
tury, other barbarian settlers had the status of laeti, barbarians (often,
defeated enemies) who were allowed to settle on land within the empire
in exchange for the payment of taxes and military service when need-
ed.68 Laeti soon gained legal rights that approximated those of Roman
citizens, as the aforementioned panegyric to Constantius of 297/8 also
spoke of, “the laetus, who has been restored by postliminium”.69 The right
of postliminium allowed Roman citizens to recover property that had been
lost, either because they had been forced into exile or because their prop-
erty had been seized by foreign invaders.70 It is important to note that for
laeti to have had this right, they must have been covered by Roman law.

63 Ammianus Marcellinus 20.4.1, 28.5.15.

64 Historia Augusta (HA), Claudius 9.3.
65 Anonymus Valesianus 32; Ausonius, Mosella 9.
66 CTh 5.6.3 (409): “They have been received by no other right than that of the colonate”.
For coloni as Roman citizens, see Liebeschuetz 1998: 136.
67 These kinds of resettlements continued in the Byzantine Empire: see Charanis
1960–61.
68 For laeti, see CIL 13.6592; Panegyrici Latini 8 (“laetus restitutus”); Ammianus Marcellinus
20.4.1 (“barbaris quos tributarios ipse fecit et vectigales”), 20.8.13 (“equos praebebo . . . miscen-
dos Gentilibus . . . adulescentes Laetos quosdam, cis Rhenum editam barbarorum progeniem,
vel certe ex dediticiis qui ad nostra desciscunt”); 1.13.16, 24.1.15; also CTh 7.20.10, 7.20.12, 13.11.10
(“terrae laeticae”), Novella Severi 2.1. For laeti, see Demougeot 1970; Simpson 1977a; Simpson
1977b; Simpson 1988.
69 Panegyrici Latini 8/5.21.1: Nixon and Saylor-Rodgers 1994: 105.
70 See Demougeot, “Lètes”, 104; Nixon and Saylor-Rodgers 1994: 143 n. 76.

191-218_Bosma et al_f9.indd 204 5/8/2013 4:53:02 PM

 “becoming roman, becoming barbarian” 205

Indeed, a law of 399 demonstrated the emperor’s personal role in granting

lands to laeti newly welcomed into the Roman fold: “Because those seeking
Roman felicity from among many barbarian peoples betake themselves to
our Empire, on whose behalf the laetic lands must be administered, no
one should merit any of these fields unless through Our adnotatio”.71 An
adnotatio was a legal document issued directly by the emperor to a partic-
ular person and granting a special privilege, in this case attesting to how
these barbarians were in fact incorporated into the Roman legal system.72
Further, a law of 409 mentioned North African gentiles (barbarian auxil-
iaries), having a status similar to the laeti, who had been “granted extents
of lands on account of their guarding and fortification of the frontier”.73
Some generals are specifically attested to have owned land, however,
without any indication of how they obtained it.74
Indeed, it turns out that barbarians participated in the Roman legal
and administrative system in a number of ways. Barbarian soldiers were
also eligible for veterans’ benefits. The law codes record several instances
of land grants and tax breaks having been awarded to army veterans.75
Although ethnicity is mentioned in only a few cases, they show barbarians
as having been treated under the law in the same way as citizens. One
regulation stated that “any Alamannic laetus or unattached Sarmatian or
son of a veteran” who was liable to the draft and falsely claimed veter-
ans’ benefits was to be enrolled in the military,76 a necessary corollary
to which would seem to be that any Alamanni and Sarmatians who, like
sons of Roman veterans, had legitimate claims could therefore be the legal
recipients of these benefits. A fragmentary ruling also granted something
unspecified to “retired veterans and gentiles”.77 These barbarians were
therefore apparently assimilated into the Roman legal system, at least as
regards land tenure and payment of taxes.78
The legal distinction between barbarians and Romans is often thought
to have held some significance with regard to marriage. A law of the 370s

71 CTh 13.11.10.
72 See Mathisen 2004.
73 CTh 7.15.1 (409). Similarities to laeti: Notitia dignitatum occidentalium 42.
74 Such as Ellebichus, Master of Soldiers 383–388: Libanius, Epistulae 898; Areobindus,
Master of Soldiers 434–49: Theodoret, Epistulae 18.23; and Fl. Valila qui et Theodobius (dis-
cussed below). See Blockley 1982.
75 E.g., CTh 7.20.3 (320), 7.20.4 (325), 7.20.8 (364), 7.20.11 (373).
76 CTh 7.20.12 (400).
77 CTh 5.11.7 (365). Because the following four constitutions dealt with deserted land,
this one probably also did.
78 For barbarian taxpayers, see also Themistius, Orationes 167.211–212.

191-218_Bosma et al_f9.indd 205 5/8/2013 4:53:02 PM

 206 ralph w. mathisen

addressed to the Master of Soldiers Theodosius decreed: “For none of the

provincials (provincialium) may there be a marriage with a barbarian wife
(barbara uxore), nor may any provincial (provincialis) woman marry any
of the gentiles . . .”.79 The law is very anomalous. Not only does no other
Roman legislation even hint at any such prohibition, but many marriages
between Romans and barbarians are also attested without any indica-
tion of any legal complications.80 So how can we explain this law? One
might note that it does not distinguish between Romani and barbari, but
between people classified more specifically as provinciales and barbari
who are further described as gentiles.81 Indeed, the title of the section in
the Theodosian Code for which this is the only entry (“On the Marriages
of Gentiles”) indicates that the law does not concern barbarians in general,
but barbarians who also were gentiles, a specialized term referring to bar-
barian army units.82 This is consistent with the law being applicable to an
army general: it must therefore have had something to do with soldiers.
Rather than being a statement of some otherwise unknown blanket
ban on Roman-barbarian marriages,83 this law is probably but one more
example of the Roman fondness for prohibiting or regulating marriages
between people from different social, legal or even religious backgrounds.84
As a statement of general policy, marriages were to be “between persons
equal in status, with no law impeding them”.85 Roman law forbade mar-
riages, for example, between certain family members, between Christians
and Jews or pagans, between slaves and the free, and so on.86 In the case
of the law in question, some inconsistency involving the status and obli-
gations of provinciales and gentiles may have arisen in the area where the
law was directed.87 Gentiles had special duties relating to their military
service, and provincials were subject to other kinds of obligations. Gen-
tiles who married provinciales perhaps could claim that they, or their off-
spring, were not liable for military service, and provinciales who married

79 CTh 3.14.1 (365/373): see Sivan 1996; also Demandt 1989; Blockley 1982; Soraci 1974:
81–108 (for earlier bibliography).
80 See Demandt 1989; Soraci 1974; Blockley 1982; Bianchini 1988.
81  For a similar distinction, compare CTh 3.4.1 (374), “non solum in barbaris, sed etiam
in provincialibus servis”.
82 Military gentiles are attested in Africa in legal sources (CTh 7.15.1 [409], 12.12.5 [364],
11.30.62 [405]), and in Italy and Gaul in Not. dig. occ. 42.
83 As assumed, e.g. by Gaudemet 1958: 223ff; Bianchini 1988: 225, 249.
84 See Mathisen 2009a.
85 CTh 3.7.3 (428).
86 E.g. CTh 3.7.2 = 9.7.5, 3.12.1 (342), 3.12.3 (422); see Evans-Grubbs 1995.
87 Sivan 1996; Soraci 1974; Bianchini 1988.

191-218_Bosma et al_f9.indd 206 5/8/2013 4:53:03 PM

 “becoming roman, becoming barbarian” 207

gentiles might claim that they were no longer liable to provincial munera.
All kinds of problems could have arisen. Marital restrictions had been
imposed on soldiers in the Roman past and this could be a similar, late-
imperial manifestation.88 If this interpretation is correct, then this law
provides an example of barbarian soldiers having been integrated into the
Roman legal system in a manner similar to the way in which other legally
disadvantaged groups (slaves, freedmen and Jews) were likewise incorpo-
rated. Indeed, an unappreciated legal parallel is provided by an Italian law
of 465 dealing with laeti who had illegally married coloni.89 The illegality
did not concern ethnicity, but legal status: coloni were bound to the land
that they worked, but laeti were not and were claiming that the children
of these marriages did not therefore have tenant-farmer status. The law
permitted the status quo for existing children, but stated that any future
offspring of such marriages would be under the authority of the owner of
the tenant-farmer’s land. In this case then, barbarian laeti not only had
recognized legal status, but also actually ranked higher than coloni on the
Roman social and legal scale.
With regard to intermarriage, therefore, the empirical evidence is cor-
rect. Barbarians and Romans were perfectly free to marry each other so
long as the marriages were “between persons equal in status, with no
law impeding them”. This notion of marital non-exclusivity was in fact
current in other spheres of contemporary Roman thought. The late-4th
century Spanish poet Prudentius, for example, stated: “A common law
makes us equal . . . the native city embraces in its unifying walls fellow
citizens . . . Foreign peoples now congregate with the right of marriage
(ius conubii): for with mixed blood, one family is created from different
peoples”.90 Even though Prudentius was speaking metaphorically about
the city of God, his words, which described people as far away as India,
seem uncannily applicable to the subject of late-Roman multi-ethnic
marriage.
Barbarians also received other kinds of acknowledgement in Roman
law. Three laws demonstrate that, even though the distinction was worth
making, slaves of both barbarian and ‘provincial’ extraction received essen-
tially the same treatment.91 Another example concerns barbarian soldiers
involved in legal cases. A law of 405, addressed to the Proconsul of Africa,

88 See Phang 2001.

89 Novella Severi 2 (465).
90 Contra Symmachum 2.598–614.
91 CTh 3.4.1 = CJ 4.58.5 (386), CTh 13.4.4 (374); CJ 4.42.2 (457/465).

191-218_Bosma et al_f9.indd 207 5/8/2013 4:53:03 PM

 208 ralph w. mathisen

stated: “In cases that come on appeal, we desire the ancient custom to
be upheld, making this addition (illud addentes), that, if ever an appeal
is introduced by gentiles or by their prefects, let a sacred examination of
a proconsular hearing be awaited”.92 The phrase ‘illud addentes’ suggests
that an exception was being made to accommodate barbarian soldiers.93
The general Roman imperial attitude that barbarians could be included
under Roman law is seen in the panegyric to Constantius, which spoke
of “the Frank, who has been received into the laws (receptus in leges)”,94
a statement that can only mean that Frankish immigrants were covered
by Roman law. This attitude also was reflected in a fictitious prophecy of
100 years later, suggesting that the emperor “would place the Franks and
Alamanni under Roman law”,95 and in Zosimus’ report about barbarian
soldiers of Theodosius I who robbed the provincials: “This was not the
behaviour of men who were ready to live according to the laws of the
Romans”.96 The idea that barbarians who acknowledged Roman suzer-
ainty should be sheltered under Roman law also is suggested by a novel
of Theodosius II, issued in 439, which began:
Thus, it is advantageous that barbarian peoples be taken possession of
(mancipari) by the empire of Our Godliness, thus our victories will seem
most fruitful for those who are obedient (oboedientibus) if the advantages
of peace are regulated by the rule of law. Therefore . . . we considered it fit-
ting . . . that each one may make a testament according to his own wishes.97
The law said no more about barbarians and went on to provide a sum-
mary of Roman testamentary practices that applied to the entire empire.
So what was the point, one might ask, of beginning the law by speaking of
defeated barbarians being regulated by Roman law? Is this merely conven-
tional, albeit extraneous, aggressive boasting? This is possible, although
no similar examples survive anywhere in Roman legislation. Therefore,
it may be that the law mentioned barbarians for a purpose, especially if,
as seems virtually certain, the word oboedientibus refers to the barbarians
who had just been mentioned. If so, the inclusion of barbarians was a

92 CTh 11.30.62 (405). Pace Sirks 1996: 149, “Barbarians were not subjected to Roman
courts”.
93 Modéran 2003: 500 (cf. 348, 510), however, suggests that these gentiles already were
citizens; contra: Ste-Croix 1981: 515.
94 Panegyrici Latini 8/5.21.1; Nixon and Saylor-Rodgers 1994: 105.
95 Historia Augusta (HA), Tacitus 15.2: “sub Romanis legibus”.
96 Zosimus, Historia nova 3.30.4; discussed by Ando, Provincial Loyalty, 341, cf. Sidonius
Apollinaris Carmen 7.495–496, 510–511.
97 Novella Theodosii 16 (439).

191-218_Bosma et al_f9.indd 208 5/8/2013 4:53:03 PM

 “becoming roman, becoming barbarian” 209

manifestation not only of traditional Roman victory ideology, but also of

a desire to incorporate newly arrived barbarians under the umbrella of
Roman ius civile.
Nor is it mere speculation to suggest that barbarians were interested
in making wills under the protection of Roman law. A law of Leo I of 468
stated:
But if a testator of a barbarian nation leaves a bequest or trust of this sort
without a person having been designated, and if some ambiguity appears
regarding his patria (home), the bishop of his city, in which the testator
died, likewise shall oversee the petition of the bequest or trust, in order to
fulfil in all ways the resolution of the deceased.98
Here, Roman ius civile is made available to someone of a barbara natio, a
term that as seen above, was the legal designation of a barbarian foreigner.
It is further notable that the issue under consideration was not whether
the barbarian had the right to designate an executor or trustee under ius
civile—that was taken for granted—but what to do if the barbarian failed
to do so. The question of the barbarian’s patria suggests another way
in which barbarians might have been legally integrated into the Roman
world. In Roman legal terminology, ‘patria’ usually referred to one’s native
city, occasionally to the Roman Empire, but never to a foreign land.99 So
how could the aforementioned barbarian have a Roman patria? A tanta-
lizing law of 364 addressed “To all the provincials”, suggests one way that
this could have happened, stating, “We grant to all well-deserving veter-
ans the patria that they wish”.100 The opportunity to choose one’s own
patria would have been most relevant to those who did not already have
one, a criterion that would have applied to barbarian veterans. Further, as
already seen, citizens of a municipality were ipso facto Roman citizens.
Barbarians also participated in traditional Roman civic activities.
In the late 4th century, Synesius lampooned barbarian generals who
exchanged their sheepskins for togas when they attended meetings of the
Senate at Constantinople.101 Zosimus was more sympathetic, and spoke
of the Gothic general Gaïnas responsibly attending Senate meetings.102

98 Codex Justinianus 1.3.28.3 (468). Significantly, this law was included in two barbarian
law codes, the Visigothic Breviarium and the “Roman Law of the Burgundians” (45.2).
99 Municipality: CTh 6.4.21.4, 8.12.3, 12.1.98, 12.1.119, 12.1.146, 12.18.2, 14.9.1, 15.1.42; Empire:
CTh 9.37.2, 10.10.25.
100 CTh 7.20.8: “quam volunt patriam damus”.
101  De regno 19/23C.
102 Zosimus, Historia nova 5.13.1.

191-218_Bosma et al_f9.indd 209 5/8/2013 4:53:03 PM

 210 ralph w. mathisen

The barbarian general Aspar even rose to hold the position of princeps
senatus (first man in the Senate) at Constantinople.103 Barbarians also
participated in traditional senatorial euergetism. In the East during the
460s, the aforementioned Aspar provided Constantinople with a new
cistern104 and in Italy, around the same time, the barbarian patrician
Ricimer underwrote mosaics for an Arian church in Rome.105 In 471, the
barbarian Master of Soldiers Fl. Valila qui et Theodobius dictated, proof-
read and subscribed to an extant donatio (deed or gift) that established
a Nicene church at Tivoli.106 Wealthy barbarians also disposed of their
property using Roman testamentary law. Aspar named another barbar-
ian, the Ostrogoth Theoderic Strabo, as one of his heirs.107 The emperor
Leo, however, refused to allow Strabo to claim his inheritance, perhaps
because of the strained political relations between the two, or perhaps
because Strabo was not covered by ius civile. Valila also bequeathed to the
church the house of Junius Bassus on the Esquiline Hill in Rome.108 In this
way, very important barbarians, frequently those with a family history of
imperial service,109 fulfilled the traditional civic roles expected of wealthy
and influential Roman citizens. Their ability to make property transfers
and testamentary bequests further demonstrates that they had full access
to Roman ius civile.
Nevertheless, barbarians who lived under the Roman legal umbrella did
not necessarily give up their barbarian identity. Multitudes of barbarian
settlers were no doubt absorbed into Roman society and retained, at most,
only sentimental attachments to their old country, but other barbarians
who served in the Roman Empire had dual residences, living part of the
time in the Roman Empire but also returning home.110 Barbarians who
wanted to keep feet in both camps were able to maintain dual citizenship,
so to speak. As already seen, one could hold Roman citizenship along with
municipal or provincial citizenship without any contradictions. In addi-
tion, a ruling of 398 permitted Jews to choose their own legal identity.

103 John Malalas, Chronicon 371; Chronicon paschale s.a. 467.

104 Chronicon paschale s.a. 459.
105 ILS, no. 1294; see Mathisen 2009.
106 Carta Cornutiana (Duchesne 1886–1892: 1.lcxlvii). See PLRE II, 1147; and Castritius
1972.
107 Malchus, fr.2: in Raffaella Cresci 1982.
108 Liber pontificalis 49: Duchesne 1886–1892: 250.
109 Note, e.g. the families of Arbogast and Richomer, Stilicho, Aspar, and Ricimer
(PLRE I, 95–7, 765–6, 853–8; PLRE II, 1310, 1312).
110 E.g. Ammianus Marcellinus 21.4.3, 29.6.5, 18.2.17; see Lee 1993: 71.

191-218_Bosma et al_f9.indd 210 5/8/2013 4:53:03 PM

 “becoming roman, becoming barbarian” 211

In civil cases, they could use their own laws within their own religious
communities or if both parties agreed, but if they were “living by Roman
common law” (Romano et communi iure viventes) they were expected to
“initiate and conclude all legal actions according to Roman law”.111 Nor is
there any indication that the Jews who chose to live by Roman law did so
in any other manner than by simply following the rules. The opportunity
to hold dual citizenship also was formally extended to barbarians even
prior to the Antonine Constitution. During the 160s, Roman citizenship
was granted to North African gentiles (salvo iure gentis) “with the law of
their people preserved”.112 These barbarians retained whatever legal obli-
gations or benefits accrued from their belonging to a barbarian people,
whilst at the same time Roman ius civile became available to them.113 Like
the Jews, they could use their own law when they identified themselves as
gentiles, or Roman law when they identified themselves as cives Romani.
This kind of dual citizenship did not create any problems of political alle-
giance, as by the late Roman Empire, being a Roman citizen had become
purely a statement of legal status and coverage. It no longer had anything
to do with politics and there were other institutions—military oaths for
soldiers and provincial council meetings for civilians—that dealt with
declaring oneself a loyal subject of the emperor.114

‘Universal Citizenship’ in the Roman Empire

So where does this leave the barbarians who settled on Roman territory
and were assimilated under the umbrella of Roman law? Could they be
deemed to have been ‘Roman citizens’? There is no evidence of any pere-
grinus having been formally granted Roman citizenship after 212.115 If this
ever did happen, it is fair to expect that we would continue to find evi-
dence for it. Given the great number of references to such awards during

111 CTh 2.1.10 (398).

112 “non cunctamur . . . ciuitatem Romanam salvo iure gentis dare”: Tabula Banasitana
(c.161/169): Labory 1982: n. 94, 76–91. See Sherwin-White 1973. For dual citizenship see:
Honoré 2002: 24; Braund 1984: 39ff: “Gothic leaders easily could have held dual citizenship”.
113 For the laws of barbarian gentes, see Sirks 1996: 153–155.
114 Military oaths: Vegetius, De rei militar 2.5, “Iurant autem per deum et Christum et
sanctum spiritum et per maiestatem imperatoris” (“they swear through god and Christ and
the holy spirit and through the majesty of the emperor”); provincial loyalty: Larsen 1934;
Ando 2000: 359–361.
115 Except for a few early examples of bureaucratic inertia: see Herodian, History 8.4.2,
and Sherwin-White 1979: 388.

191-218_Bosma et al_f9.indd 211 5/8/2013 4:53:03 PM

 212 ralph w. mathisen

the Principate, the lack of them during the later empire has to be signifi-
cant and cannot be dismissed as an argument born of silence. After 212,
the only formal grants of Roman citizenship that continued to be made
were to freedmen and slaves, who thus experienced not so much a change
from ‘non-citizen’ to ‘citizen’, as a transfer to a greater measure of legal
freedom under ius civile. It was a difference of degree rather than kind.
However, peregrini no longer received grants of citizenship. Thus, when
considering the question of whether barbarians were considered to have
been Roman citizens, one must not assume that this happened as a conse-
quence of some legal act. It must have happened in some other manner.
Nevertheless, it certainly did happen, for as noted above, there is much
evidence for barbarians having behaved as if they were Roman citizens.
They held office,116 owned and transferred property, made wills, went to
Roman courts and generally made use of ius civile: all without formally
receiving citizenship. The most reasonable explanation for their ability
to do all this is that the Antonine Constitution was meant to be self-
perpetuating. All free foreign peregrini who settled in the Roman Empire
and took up the obligations and identity of cives of a municipality or a
province were potential Roman citizens. Being a foreign barbarian did not
exclude one from access to some, if not all, elements of Roman ius civile
and from other citizen privileges. What counted was not ethnicity, but
distinctions between slaves, freedmen and full citizens, who had different
levels of access to ius civile. Indeed, the primary distinction in prevailing
Roman law was not even between citizen and non-citizen, but between
degrees of legal access, as denoted by being a slave, freedman, colonus,
dediticius or under a sentence of infamia. Free status conveyed full access
to ius civile, whereas non-free status equated to non-citizen status in the
sense of incomplete access to ius civile. Conversely, anything less than full-
citizen status necessarily implied restricted legal access. It was therefore
a contradiction to suggest that a free person could be a non-citizen. This
would explain why there are no cases during the later empire of anyone
being denied access to ius civile on the basis of ethnic, or any other non-
servile, status. This is in stark contrast to the Principate, when accusations
of non-citizens passing themselves off as citizens were rampant.117

116 And to hold the office of Consul certainly implied that one had the ius honorum, the
right of Roman citizens to hold office.
117 E.g. Epictetus, Disccourses 3.41, “those who falsely claim Roman citizenship are
severely punished”; see Reinhold 1971.

191-218_Bosma et al_f9.indd 212 5/8/2013 4:53:03 PM

 “becoming roman, becoming barbarian” 213

It is therefore no surprise that free barbarian peregrini had access to

ius civile. However, this does not mean that all barbarians were automati-
cally considered citizens. It was making use of the ‘law of Roman citizens’
that made someone both de facto and de iure a citizen. Citizenship was
a matter of participation and self-identification:118 one could just as eas-
ily identify oneself as a civis Francus as a civis Romanus. Indeed, given
the concept of dual identity, one could do both. There was no process
by which a foreigner became a Roman citizen except by functioning as
one. Caracalla’s edict truly intended that ius civile would apply to every-
one, including new residents. Roman law united everyone in the world. As
expressed by the 3rd century jurist Modestinus in his work On Manumis-
sions: “Roma communis nostra patria est” (Rome is our shared homeland).119
The same ideology lay behind the Augustan History’s proud observation in
the late-4th century about the emperor Probus: “Did he not defeat all of the
barbarian nations and make almost the entire world Roman?”120
By making their law available to all, the Romans manifested their
claim to rule as much of the orbis terrarum (circle of the lands) as was
worth ruling, and created a functional equivalent of universal citizenship.121
Even though this was initially done largely for purposes of administrative
streamlining, it also reflected a pervasive belief in the world of Roman offi-
cialdom that people living under Roman authority ought to have access
to Roman law. In the conceptual framework of Roman claims to political
jurisdiction beyond whatever the effective extent of Roman political con-
trol happened to be, there was nothing inconsistent in permitting immi-
grating foreigners from beyond the frontiers to live under the umbrella
of Roman ius civile. As a result, a Frank or Visigoth could become just as
much a Roman citizen as a Numidian, Sardinian or Egyptian.

Citizenship and Integration in the Post-Roman World

The fall of the Western Roman Empire and the establishment of barbar-
ian successor states in the 5th century ce brought about a sea change in
the political and social organization of the western Roman world. Com-
monplace social and economic structures were turned upside down.

118  A point made by Ando 2000: 352, for the pre-212 period.
119  Digest 50.1.33. For this concept, see Thomas: 1996.
120 Historia Augusta (HA), Probus 18.4.
121  For Roman rule of the “orbis terrarum” (“circle of the lands”), see Ando 2000: 278ff.

191-218_Bosma et al_f9.indd 213 5/8/2013 4:53:04 PM

 214 ralph w. mathisen

Barbarians, who in the past had been disparaged by haughty and arrogant
Romans for their lack of social graces and ungrammatical Latin, were now
in positions of authority, lording it over the Romans. One might think that
this was the time for some payback, but that is not how the transition
usually played out. Indeed, one of the great mysteries of history is why
the transition from Roman to barbarian rule was accomplished with such
a relatively minimal amount of disruption. Barbarians certainly occupied
large amounts of Roman territory (although much of it had been the prop-
erty of the Roman government and was not, in fact, violently expropriated
from Roman landowners) and did appropriate the role previously held by
Roman emperors as supreme secular administrators. However, in other
regards, life went on. Romans continued to serve in administrative posi-
tions. Roman law continued as the law of the land. Latin continued as
the language of administrative and intellectual discourse. Roman culture
continued to provide literary and artistic models. Further, of course, the
Roman Christian religion became the greatest cultural and even political
force of the times.122
Barbarian kingdoms preserved concepts of citizenship that were some-
times, but not always, related to legal jurisdiction. They paid particular
attention to safeguarding the rights of those identified as Roman citizens.
Both the Visigoths and the Burgundians preserved a law of Constantine
dealing with slaves who had been made ‘Roman citizens’.123 Regarding
inheritances, the Visigothic interpretation of a law of Valentinian III
referred to “the succession rights of liberti who are Roman citizens”,124 and
the “Burgundian Law of the Romans” included regulations dealing with
witnessing procedures and the wills of Roman citizens.125 In late-6th cen-
tury Italy and 7th century Spain, slaves still were being formally manu-
mitted and granted Roman citizenship.126 Well into the 9th century, legal
forms in the Frankish kingdom continued to convey ‘Roman citizenship’,
which “included the right to make a will, to give testimony, to buy, to sell,

122 For the post-Roman world, see, inter alios, Brown 1974; Moorhead 2001; Halsall
2007.
123 Visigoths: CTh 4.7.1 = Breviarium Alarici 4.7.1 (506). Burgundians: Lex Romana Bur-
gundionum 3.
124 Nov. Val. 25, interpretatio (506). Novella Valentiniani 25 (interpretatio) (ad 447).
Interpretation in the Breviarium of Alaric II of ad 506 of Novel (New Law) 25 of the
emperor Valentinian III (ad 425–455).
125 Lex Romana Burgundionum 45.2 (derived from Nov.Theod. 16, also included in the
Visigothic Breviarium): 45.4.
126 Gregory the Great, Regularum 6.12 (595): “vos . . . liberos . . . civesque romanos effici-
mus”; Lex Visigothorum 12.2.13–14.

191-218_Bosma et al_f9.indd 214 5/8/2013 4:53:04 PM

 “becoming roman, becoming barbarian” 215

to endow, and to commute”, just as in the Roman period.127 However, in

post-Roman Gaul, as during the later Roman Empire, generic references
to ‘citizens’ usually meant citizens of cities.128 In the Ostrogothic king-
dom of Italy, the term ‘civis’ likewise usually signified citizens of cities,129
but there also was a more generalized usage, referring to citizens of ‘the
Republic’, that is, Romans (and perhaps Ostrogoths as well) now subject
to the Ostrogothic monarchy.130 The Visigothic kingdom of the 7th cen-
tury also issued laws “for the utility of all citizens”.131
However, exactly what did it mean to be a ‘citizen’ of a barbarian king-
dom? One hint comes from the 470s. After the Gallo-Roman Lampridius
had his property restored by the Visigothic king Euric, Sidonius Apollinaris
wrote to him, “I, until now (adhuc), act as an exile; you yourself now act as
a citizen”.132 In whatever sense that it entailed, Lampridius had become a
citizen of the Visigothic kingdom, and the word ‘adhuc’ suggests that Sido-
nius hoped to do the same. There is no indication of any formal process
for becoming a citizen of a barbarian kingdom. It is likely that, just as in
the Roman Empire, one did so by a process of residence, participation and
self-identification. Romans now had the opportunity to exercise a dual
citizenship of their own. Just as it had been possible during the Roman
Empire to be both a gentilis and a civis Romanus, in barbarian kingdoms
one could retain Roman citizenship while at the same time identifying
oneself as a citizen of a barbarian kingdom.133
The permeability of various forms of citizenship status in the barbar-
ian kingdoms helps to explain why the transition from Roman to bar-
barian administrations just before and after the year 500 was not nearly
as disruptive as it might have been. Roman administrative systems were
preserved,134 as were institutions relating to personal legal status and pro-
cedures for all citizens of a kingdom. An additional consideration that

127 Formulae Arvernenses 27: MGH, Formulae 30, cf. 141, 172, 182, 246, 257–8, 311–3, 518,
and throughout.
128 E.g. Gregory of Tours, Historiae 7.31, 8.20, 10.31, 9.6, 2.11, 4.16, 9.13, 10.31. 6.13, 10.31;
CTh 1.29.6 = Brev.1.10.1 interpretatio.
129 E.g. Cassiodorus, Variarum 1.21.1, 2.37.1, 3.44.1, 6.23, 7.8, 7.11–12, 7.29, 7.44, 8.30.3, 8.31,
9.2.4–6, 9.5.1, 9.14.2, 11.12, 12.13.1, 12.15.6; special attention was given to the citizens and Sen-
ate of Rome: e.g. Var. 1.41, 2.32, 3.10, 9.17, 10.13.
130 Var. 6.11.1, 7.37.1, cf. 4.16.1, 6.1.1–4, 11.13.3, 11.5.4.
131  Lex Visigothorum (= Liber iudiciorum) 1.3.
132 Sidonius Apollinaris, Epistulae 8.9.3.
133 For Romans vis-á-vis barbarians in barbarian law codes, see, e.g. Mathisen and Sivan
1999.
134 See Barnwell 1992.

191-218_Bosma et al_f9.indd 215 5/8/2013 4:53:04 PM

 216 ralph w. mathisen

would have eased the transition is that being identified as a Roman citi-
zen was simply a statement of coverage under Roman ius civile. It did not
carry any sense of political loyalty to the Byzantine emperor or the old
Roman Empire.
Over the longer term, however, the Roman concept of universal citizen-
ship was lost. After all, barbarian kingdoms had none of the ideological
or conceptual underpinnings that had led to Roman ideas of inclusive
citizenship. In particular, they had no claim to universal political hege-
mony. Quite the contrary, as each was confronted by a welter of other
kingdoms, not to mention a resurgent Roman Empire in the East, with
which they usually competed. Exclusivity rather than inclusivity was their
watchword. As the Roman afterglow petered out, Roman concepts of citi-
zenship, whether of a world, a nation, a province or a city, did likewise, to
be replaced in the Middle Ages by models of subjugation to bishops and
kings.135 Any idea of universal citizenship was now transferred from the
cosmopolitan city of the secular world to the heavenly city of God, more
meaningful in the context of the world to come than in the here-and-now.
Not until the later Middle Ages did ancient-appearing forms of citizenship
based on city centres begin to re-emerge.136 It was only during the Renais-
sance that Roman concepts of individual citizen liberty, not to mention
ideas of world citizenship, reappeared.137
This study of how barbarians were integrated legally into the Roman
world adds one piece to the puzzle of how the Roman Empire evolved
into barbarian Europe. There was no great legal, and hence no great
social or even cultural, divide between Romans and barbarians in the late
Roman Empire. Evolving concepts of citizenship and the extension of legal
rights facilitated the integration of foreign, barbarian populations into the
Roman world and the essentially peaceful transition from Roman to bar-
barian rule in the Western Roman Empire during the 5th and 6th centu-
ries. Since the fall of the Western Roman Empire, no nation has been so
grand that it could claim to encompass the whole world or attempt to cre-
ate a form of universal citizenship that was open to all comers. However
now, at the beginning of the 21st century, there is again much discussion
of the different forms that universal citizenship could take. In spite of, or

135 See Blackstone 1765–1769: 1.354, “The first and most obvious division of the people is
into aliens and natural-born subjects”. Note also Post 1976. Most discussions of Roman law
in the Middle Ages do not even mention citizenship, e.g. Vinogradoff 1929.
136 See Howell 1988.
137 See Kant 1974: 4.

191-218_Bosma et al_f9.indd 216 5/8/2013 4:53:04 PM

 “becoming roman, becoming barbarian” 217

perhaps because of, the chronological gap between the ancient and mod-
ern phenomena of world citizenship, it may be that the Roman model
for dealing with issues of ethnicity, identity and religion in the context of
legal definitions of citizenship has much to teach us.138 In particular, the
time might have come once again for a form of citizenship unburdened
by the baggage of nationalism or political allegiances.

138 See, e.g. Bruschi 1988.

191-218_Bosma et al_f9.indd 217 5/8/2013 4:53:04 PM

191-218_Bosma et al_f9.indd 218 5/8/2013 4:53:04 PM