C. I. L. II. CHAPTER XXI THE PEOPLE (a) Citizenship 482. The Methods of Acquiring Citizenship. Citizenship could be acquired, as under the republic, by birth, by adoption, by manumission, and by a special grant. The son of a Roman citizen inherited the rights of citizenship. The son of a Latin acquired them when he was adopted by a Roman citizen. The other two methods of acquiring them call for a fuller statement. 483. Citizenship Acquired by Special Grant or by Manumission. Various classes of persons acquired the rights of citizenship by virtue of having conformed to certain specified conditions Thus, for instance, those who received an honorable discharge, after having served twenty-five years in the auxiliary force, or twenty-six years in the navy, became Roman citizens. Latins gained the same privilege when they were enrolled in the legions, and magistrates in towns enjoying the Latin rights were honored with Roman 1945; V. 532. citizenship. Freedmen also, after serving a certain number of years as vigiles, gained full civic rights. The conditions on which citizenship was granted to individuals or particular communities cannot be so exactly stated. Personal favor, or political considerations, or a desire to reward those who had rendered a noteworthy service to the community, were usually the deciding factors in these cases. Augustus gave the rights of Roman citizenship to few communities, Suet. Aug. Dio, 60. 17; 1. 8. but his successors bestowed them upon towns in all parts of the empire. The imperium proconsulare of the emperor entitled him to make these grants in the imperial provinces (cf. p. 245), but, although Augustus may have consulted the senate and popular assembly in cases outside the imperial provinces, it is plain that his successors felt free, on their own authority, to grant Roman citizenship to any individual or community. The greatest addition to the number of citizens, however, came by way of manumission, and the rapid increase in the number of freedmen which resulted seemed so serious a matter to Augustus that he caused a series of laws to be passed to restrict it (cf. p. 390). 484. The Loss of Citizenship. As under the republic (cf. p. 245), those who had been captured in war, turned over to the enemy, or sold into slavery suffered capitis deminutio maxima. The third provision just mentioned underwent a strange interpretation or extension in the case of those known as servi poenae. The legal fiction involved in the matter is clearly indicated by Pliny (ad Traianum, XXXI. 2): in plerisque civitatibus, maxime Nicomediae et Nicaeae, quidam vel in opus damnati vel in ludum similiaque his genera poenarum publicorum servorum officio ministerioque funguntur atque etiam ut publici servi annua accipiunt. Those became servi poenae, qui ad ferrum aut ad bestias aut in metallum damnantur (Dig. XXVIII. 1. 8. 4). Capitis deminutio media was visited on those who suffered deportatio, or transportation to an island. Relegatio, or the penalty of being obliged to live within a certain section of the empire, did not bring with it a loss of citizenship. 485. The Rights of Roman Citizens. All Roman citizens, except freedmen, had the full enjoyment of the traditional iura commercii, conubii, provocationis, legis actionis, suffragii, and the ius honorum. In respect to their private Dio, 57. 17; Suet. Nero, 12; Galba, 14; Tac. Ann. I. 58. Plin. N. H. 33.32. Herz. II. 915 ff. Nipperdey on Tac. Ann. St. R. III. 806 f. rights freedmen stood essentially on the same plane as freemen, except that they were forbidden to marry with members of the senatorial order and were liable to the punishment of being obliged to live at least one hundred miles from Rome for certain offenses against their patrons. Freedmen thus punished were known as peregrini dediticii. All freedmen were still restricted to four of the city tribes (p. 247), but this restriction was of little moment because of the decadence of the popular assemblies. The most important limitations put on them were in the matter of the ius honorum, and of admission to the equestrian order. Not only freedmen, but their sons and grandsons, were excluded from the equestrian order and from the magistracies, and consequently from the senatorial order. It was within the power of the emperor, however, by a natalium restitutio to remove this disability. Reference has been made above to the attempt which Augustus made to restrict indiscriminate manumission. The most important step which he took in this direction consisted in securing the passage in A.D. 4 of the lex Aelia Sentia, which provided, among other things, that slaves under thirty years of age who were declared free, and those who were declared free in the will of a deceased owner, did not become technically free. Their legal status was more clearly defined by the lex Iunia Norbana of A.D. 19, which rendered them incapable of making a will, and gave them the rights, with certain limitations, of Latini Iuniani. 486. The Obligations of Citizenship. The two principal obligations resting on Roman citizens were the payment of taxes and service in the army. Roman citizens in Italy paid no direct taxes. Those in the provinces were subject to the tributum soli and the tributum capitis. This exemption of Roman citizens in Italy was the peculiar privilege going with the ius Italicum. Military service was incumbent on every freeman, but, since a sufficient number of soldiers was usually to be had by voluntary enlistment, it was rarely necessary to resort to a draft. In fact, after the time of the Flavian_emperors, the legions were never Herz: II. 349 f. recruited from Italy.The legions and the praetorian guard were made up exclusively of free-born Roman citizens and of Latins or peregrini belonging to oppida. Freedmen served in the navy and in the cohortes vigilum. (b) The Plebeians The old dis 487. The Legal Status of the Plebeians. tinction between the plebeians and patricians is lost sight of under the empire, but by a strange turn of the wheel of fortune the term plebs came to indicate, just as it had done in the early republic, those who were outside the privileged classes. It comprised, in fact, all those who were below the senatorial and equestrian orders. And just as had been the case under the early republic, the plebeians under the empire were essentially without political rights, and were shut out of the classes above them by legal. restrictions. There was, however, this important difference between the two cases. The barrier was not an insurmountable one. By acquiring the fortune required of a knight or senator a plebeian freeman could rise into one of the higher orders. The most important legal difference, then, between the plebeians on the one hand and the members of the equestrian and senatorial orders on the other, was in the matter of political rights. In one respect their private rights were less, since for a given offense they were liable to a severer punishment than were those who belonged to the two upper classes. Dig. 48. 8.3.5. Mon. Ancyr. 3, 1. 7; Dio, 55. 10. Plin. Ep. 1. 19. Suet. Aug. 27; Tac. Hist. 1. 13. The massing of property in 488. The Plebs Urbana. the hands of the few had practically blotted out the independent middle class, and the great body of freemen outside the two orders were partly or entirely dependent on the state for support. The term plebs urbana was practically applied to the 200,000 or more whose names made up the list of recipients of grain. 489. The Plebeians outside Rome. The population in the Italian municipal towns reproduced in miniature the state of things in Rome. A freeman who had a rating of 100,000 sesterces, and was eligible in other respects, could by election to one of the local offices secure admission to the municipal senate. Those who did not have the requisite property were not eligible, so that these small towns also had their senatorial order and their plebeians, although the minimum sum which made one eligible to the senatorial order in the municipalities was so small that the members of that order constituted a middle class in Italy. (c) The Equestrian Order 490. Admission to the Equestrian Order. The conditions of eligibility to the equestrian order were the possession of property valued at 400,000 sesterces, free birth, and a respectable standing in the community. It was, however, in the power of the emperor to pass over the condition of free birth, and to elevate freedmen to the equestrian rank. Admission to the order rested with the emperor, who established a bureau, known as a censibus equestribus, to receive applications and collect the necessary information. If the property of a member of the order fell below the required minimum, or if his mode of life was objectionable, his name was dropped from the list. |