The emperor Caracalla's grant of Roman citizenship to the entire free population of the Roman Empire in 212 ce, in an edict that is commonly referred to as the Constitutio Antoniniana, is one of the great cruxes of Roman history: an imperial speech-act of revolutionary import, wide-ranging consequences and profound long-term implications, but for which only a handful of ancient testimonia survive. The most important is a third-century papyrus from Roman Egypt (P. Giss. I 40) containing several edicts of Caracalla, one of which refers to the citizenship grant. Since its publication in 1910, this very fragmentary text has been the object of intense scholarly debate. In this study of the Constitutio Antoniniana, I. offers an analysis of Caracalla's motivations in issuing his citizenship grant, accompanied by a reconstruction of the relevant edict in the Giessen papyrus. In light of the massive bibliography on the Constitutio, I. describes his study as a ‘hitherto unprecedented’ attempt to consider all factors that may have motivated the emperor to extend the Roman franchise to the entire imperial population (p. 1).
A major motivating factor for the edict, I. argues, was the ‘terminal decline’ of the economy of the Roman Empire in the second century (pp. 53–61), which created pressure on imperial finances. In this situation, I. argues, the Constitutio Antoniniana had a clear fiscal rationale in that it turned the imperial population into a unified tax base of Roman citizens. I. emphasises that Caracalla's doubling of the inheritance tax (vicesima hereditatum), combined with the citizenship grant, augmented the revenues flowing into the military treasury (aerarium militare) and infers that a major objective of Caracalla was to increase the finances available for the Roman army. I. also argues that the debasement of silver coinage under Septimius Severus and his successors (pp. 79–80) most likely reflects an effort to increase liquidity in imperial coffers to finance the army. I. identifies a strong military rationale behind the Constitutio: a grant of Roman citizenship made the entire imperial population eligible to be recruited into the Roman legions, which I. argues was a way to address a chronic manpower shortage and create favourable conditions for Caracalla's planned Parthian campaigns. As a further context for the Constitutio, I. assesses the immediate events leading up to Caracalla's grant (pp. 12–29) with emphasis on his murder of his brother Geta in 211 as a critical moment for the legitimacy of Caracalla's sole rule, which according to I. spurred Caracalla to develop a bold public image as a pious, just and generous ruler (pp. 113–34).
I.’s study is clearly written and poses important questions about the Constitutio Antoniniana and its historical context. I. generally gives a cautious and balanced view of the available literary sources for the Severan age (Cassius Dio, Herodian, HA). His choice to focalise his historical narrative of the Constitutio Antoniniana through the person of Caracalla is interesting but problematic. While questions of Caracalla's iconography, self-fashioning and self-legitimation (pp. 91–133) are certainly relevant, the sparsity of available evidence means that I.’s discussions of the agency and subjectivity of Caracalla are necessarily speculative. This is arguably a less productive approach than I.’s analysis of institutional developments and trends in fiscal and military policy in the Antonine and Severan age.
In attributing agency to Caracalla as the ‘driving force’ behind the Constitutio and downplaying the role of Caracalla's legal advisors (pp. 33–8), I. devotes very little attention to the legal sphere. Apart from the vague claim that Caracalla guaranteed his provincial subjects ‘legal parity’ and ‘access to the framework of the Roman legal system’ (p. 133), there is virtually no discussion of the legal implications of the Constitutio. It is never explained, for instance, what difference Caracalla's citizenship grant made for the imperial population at large and why it would have been perceived as a great act of imperial generosity (beneficium). The controversial problem of the precise meaning and implications of the clause salvo iure gentis in the Tabula Banasitana and of the reconstruction μ̣έ̣νοντος [τοῦ δικαίου τῶν πολιτευμ]άτων in the Giessen papyrus is not addressed. The clauses are simply translated as ‘preserving customary law’. Naturally, not all topics can be covered in a single study, but one would have expected the legal significance of the Constitutio Antoniniana with its massive bibliography at least to have been acknowledged.
I.’s conclusions about the fiscal and military policies of the Severi and the Constitutio Antoniniana are in line with traditional accounts of the Severan age. One immediately thinks of M.I. Rostovzeff's depiction (Social and Economic History [19572], pp. 393–432) of the Severan emperors as military monarchs who sought to squeeze revenue out of the empire's urban elites in order to finance the army and cultivate a loyal, militarised power base in the provinces. One also thinks of the more recent, extended analysis of J.-M. Carrié and A. Rousselle (L'Empire romain en mutation [1999]), who situate the imperial policies of the Severan age within a broader trend towards administrative and fiscal rationalisation that looks forward to the tetrarchic reforms. I.’s observation that the Severan age was a ‘high watermark’ for the rise of provincials in the equestrian civil service (pp. 115–17) is, of course, amply demonstrated by H.-G. Pflaum's work on equestrian careers (Les carrières procuratoriennes équestres [1960–1]). I.’s lack of engagement with these studies and omission of other important works of scholarship on the Severan age (G. Alföldy, BJ 68 [1968], 112–60; A. Mastino, Le titolature di Caracalla e Geta [1981]; J.-P. Coriat, Le prince législateur [1997]; M. Handy, Die Severer und das Heer [2009], to name only a few) undercut his claims for the novelty of his arguments.
As a crucial part of his study, I. offers his own edition of Caracalla's first edict in the Giessen papyrus (P. Giss. I 40 ll. 1–17), prefacing it as follows: ‘combining study of previous editions with my own examination of the artefact, then, I have restored the Giessen text in the following manner’ (p. 40). A close look at this edition (appendix, pp. 139–51) reveals that I. has simply reproduced F.M. Heichelheim's reconstruction of the edict (JEA 26 [1941]). In the only two places where I. departs from Heichelheim's text (ll. 6 and 9), he integrates two reconstructions proposed by J.H. Oliver in his review of H. Wolff, Die Constitutio Antoniniana und Papyrus Gissensis, AJP 99 (1978) (ἐν τῇ ἀρχῇ in the lacuna in l. 6; [ἀδδ]ειτικίων in l. 9). Nowhere does I. give any indication that his reconstruction of the edict actually comes from Heichelheim. His concession to Heichelheim is limited to the following acknowledgement: ‘the reconstruction of lines 15–17 relies heavily on the edition of Heichelheim (1941) 10–22’ (p. 139 n. 1). In fact, Heichelheim's edition is the ostensible source of I.’s entire text.
Apart from this surprising lack of attribution, I.’s use of Heichelheim's edition is also problematic because Heichelheim had attempted a highly speculative restoration of Caracalla's edict, filling in the missing left third of the papyrus and restoring whole lines on the basis of exiguous traces of two or three letters. For example, Ηeichelheim employs the following letter traces: [ ]ητω[ ]π̣[ ̣]ο̣ς̣[ ]/[ ]θη[ ]/[ ]ο̣λω[ ] to reconstruct the entirety of lines 14–16 to the effect that no one would be left stateless in the Roman Empire and that the imperial population was now subject to the traditional taxes on Roman citizens. Throughout his book (pp. 72, 100, 103, 115, 122 and 132), I. cites this and other similarly hypothetical reconstructions to support his arguments, printing the text without any square brackets or diacritical signs, as if the words he quotes were actually there on the papyrus. Consequently, any reader who does not devote careful attention to the appendix will inevitably mistake for documentary evidence what is merely hypothetical conjecture.
This makes it difficult to strike a balance in assessing this book. An interesting and well-presented interpretative study is ultimately undermined by major bibliographical oversight and cavalier use of fragmentary and complex documentary evidence.
