2013_CONSTITUTIO ANTONINIANA: LA POLITICA DELLA CITTADINANZA DI UN IMPERATORE AFRICANO (original) (raw)

2013, BULLETTINO DELL’ISTITUTO DI DIRITTO ROMANO « VITTORIO SCIALOJA » Quarta Serie Vol. III(2013) Volume CVII della collezione

The issuing of the constitutio tended towards the equality of all freemen in the framework of the sole ius Romanum, founding a supranational entity that by this stage went beyond any division of race or language. The papyrus manuscript conserved in Giessen, Germany, without doubt contains the text of the edict, with a safety clause that is rather difficult to interpret. Traditional wisdom would see it as a reference to the exclusion of the dediticii, perhaps the non-urban tribute-paying peasant masses. Comparison with an epigraphic document from the era of Marcus Aurelius, the tabula Banasitana, direct predecessor of Caracalla’s edict, with the clause salvo iure gentis testifies to the survival of the law of the single nationes, alongside Roman law, without however compromising obligations towards the communis patria, Rome. This was urbs opening up to the orbis. All these elements lead back to the civitas augescens formula, to that process of progressive extension of the Roman area, balancing the equilibrium between cives and peregrini and placing extra emphasis on the sense of universal community. Today we can only vaguely perceive the complexity of this issue that allows us to conceive not only the vitality of the different provincial realities, but also how multifaceted they were. The constitutio Antoniniana was the answer that one of the African emperors retained should be given to the requests of the provincials, in other words, those groups that had led him to power. This was a first important step towards the equality of the rights and obligations that constituted the core of citizenship in the ancient world as it does today. Problems of coexistence between the new citizens and those of ancient date persisted until after 212. This is testified to in a tangible way by the foundation of new colonies even at the end of the 3rd century, above all in Africa.