Legal Status in the Roman Empire

Roman settlements

• Colonies

• municipia (some with partial rights)

Pergrine cities

• Free cities

• Tribute paying cities

Communities w/o civic status

• Towns, villages attributed to larger settlements for admin purposes

Personal Legal status

• Roman society was highly stratified and unequal

• Personal legal status determined:
  - capacity to marry legally
  - capacity to own and dispose of property
  - capacity to vote and hold political office
  - protection within the law

What was the three-tiered system of personal status in Roman law

• Status liberatis
  - distinguished between free individuals and slaves

• Status civitatis
  - distinguished between citizens and foreigners (peregrini)

• status familiae
  - defines a position within a family
  - those who are under the power of another (eg child or wife under the pater familias)

How could a slave gain their freedom?

• Buy it
  - master gets the money
  - former slaves often continue to offer services to their former master

• Be set free
  - reward for good behaviour
  - becuase a slave is their biological child

Forms of manumission

• Formal (iusta)
  - in front of a magistrate
  - by entry into cenus
  - by will after a master’s death
  - full Roman citizenship but can’t hold high office

• Informal (inisuta)
  - By letter, among friends, at the dinner table
  - No Roman citizenship
  - Status of Junian Latins → limited legal rights and could acquire Roman citizenship for subsequent contributions to society

Was Roman social status rigid in practice?

• Legal status did not also correspond to lived experience
  - wealthy freedperson or “outrank” poor freeborn citizens
  - provincial elite (even without Roman citizenship) could wield huge local or regional power
  - though lacking in political rights, women could exercise considerable social and economic influence

Rights enjoyed by full Roman citizens

• Could legally marry other Roman citizens

• transmit status and property to children

• protected from torture and summary execution

• subject to taxes which only applied to citizens

Rights Latins had

• Intermediate status
  - some legal rights and protections

• facilitated route to acquisition of full citizenship

Rights Peregrini (foreigners) had

• Governed by own laws → on the basis of local citizenship
  - but subject to Roman authority

• Could aquire Roman citizenship

Tabula Clesiana, 46 CE

• Claudius’ edict granting Roman citizenship to 3 tribes
  - attributed to the municipium of Tridentum

Constitutio Antoniniana, 212 CE

• Gave everyone in the Roman world citizenship

How was legal status a tool of Empire

• citizenship and legal privilege were key
  - helped to integrate conquered peoples
  - control diverse populations
  - rewards loyalty and punish disobedience

Tabula Banasitana, 177 CE

• Marcus Aurelius and Lucius Verus granted Roman citizenship to Julianus (chieftain of Beber tribe) and his wife and kids
  - still had to pay tribute and tax

Examples of legal status being used as punishement

• For neglecting the cult of Augustus and allegations of violence to Roman citizens, the communities of Cyzixus “forfeited” the freedom earned during the Mithridatic War

• Claudius reduced the Lycians to servitude becuase they had revolted and slain some Romans