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Another Interpretation of the ‘Constitutio Antoniniana’1
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 September 2012
Extract
Much has been written on the ‘Constitutio Antoniniana,’ especially since the publication of Papyrus Giessen 40, but very little in English. It may therefore be useful if, before I state my own views on the subject, I briefly summarise the main stages of the controversy up to the point which it has hitherto reached.
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- Copyright ©A. H. M. Jones 1936. Exclusive Licence to Publish: The Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies
References
2 Referred to below as CA.
3 Ges. Schr., v, 418–9.
4 Strafr., 123–5, especially. 1242.
5 Heerwesen, 136 ff.
6 Grundz., 59 ff.
7 P Ryl., ii, 210, pp. 286–8.
8 Grundz., 85.
9 Boll. Ist. Dir. Rom., xxxii, 1922–1993, 191 ff.Google Scholar and Studi in onore di Silvio Perozzi, 139 ff.
10 Atti Acc. dei Lincei, 1925, Ser. vi, 1.
11 Cited st length in Capocci, op. cit., 11–25.
12 Zeitschr. Savigny Stift., Roman. Abt., 1931, 277 ff.
13 Philologus, 1933, 272 ff.
14 AJA, 1934, 180.
15 Cod. Theod., vii, 13, 16.
16 Amm. Marc. xx, 8, 13; xxi, 4, 8.
17 ILS 9184.
18 Zeitschr. Savigny Stift., Roman. Abt., 1934, 337.
19 Strabo, xii, 3, 4, p. 542.
20 apud Jos., Ant. xiv, 7, 2, § 115.
21 IGR iii, 69.
22 IGR iv, 289.
23 Syll. 3 742.
24 IGR iii, 801.
25 Ad Edictum, lxi, apud Dig., L, i, 30.
26 Jörs (P-W, s.v. ‘Domitius,’ coll. 1439–40) has shown that the treatise Ad Edictum was almost certainly written in Caracalla's reign. The CA is recorded in Book xxii of the work (Dig., I, v, 17).
27 Staatsrecht, iii, 138–42.
28 Staatsrecht, iii, 716 seqq.
29 Gaius, i, 25; Ulpian, xxii, 2.
30 I should explain how I square this passage of Ulpian with my own theory. Most dediticii (e.g. the Egyptians) could make wills, although they were nullius civitatis cives. They could do so, I believe, under administrative rules enacted by the Roman government for particular categories of dediticii. Ulpian‘s argument is therefore incomplete. He should have added ‘because the Roman government has enacted no rules for this category of peregrini dediticii.’ But this was so obvious as not to be worth stating. The question would never have arisen had the Lex Aelia Sentia regulated it.
31 Gaius i, 15.
32 Gaius i, 26.
33 Gaius i, 67–8; Ulpian, vii, 4.
34 Gaiusi, 13.
35 Aug., 40.
36 Ep. x, 5, 6 and 7.
37 This disability of Egyptians is also implicit in § 55 of the Gnomon, whence it appears that Egyptians were not, like most peregrini, admitted to the legions, and did not improve their condition if they served clandestinely. Egyptians who served in the fleet of Misenum must presumably have obtained their citizenship by some such fiction as that employed in the case of Harpocras. They perhaps acquired peregrine or Latin status on recruitment and then Roman citizenship on discharge.
38 Archiv Pap., ix, 24 seqq.
39 Pliny says of Harpocras (Ep. x, 5), ‘est enim peregrinae condicionis manumissus a peregrina.’ Manumission would not necessarily have made Harpocras a citizen of his community, but it proved that he was a free man and a member of a foreign community, and this sufficiently defined his status (or would have done had not his patrona been a dediticia).
40 See Wilcken, Chrestom. i, 36, 403, 405.
41 JEA, 1935, 244 ff.
42 Ep., i, 489: Migne, PG, lxxviii, 448–9.
43 Municipal Administration in the Roman Empire, 191–2, 549–50Google Scholar.
44 JRS XVII, 1927, 35Google Scholar.
45 ILS 6680.
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