Roman Citizenship
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Roman Citizenship
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politics and government of
ancient Rome
Roman Constitution
Precedent and law
Ordinary magistrates
Extraordinary magistrates
Titles and honours


  • Client state citizens and allies (socii) of Rome could receive a limited form of Roman citizenship such as the Latin Right. Such citizens could not vote or be elected in Roman elections.[1]
  • Slaves were considered property and lacked legal personhood. Over time, they acquired a few protections under Roman law. Some slaves were freed by manumission for services rendered, or through a testamentary provision when their master died. Once free, they faced few barriers, beyond normal social snobbery, to participating in Roman society. The principle that a person could become a citizen by law rather than birth was enshrined in Roman mythology; when Romulus defeated the Sabines in battle, he promised the war captives that were in Rome they could become citizens.[2]

Possible rights

  • Ius suffragii: The right to vote in the Roman assemblies.
  • Ius honorum: The right to stand for civil or public office.
  • Ius gentium: The legal recognition, developed in the 3rd century BC, of the growing international scope of Roman affairs, and the need for Roman law to deal with situations between Roman citizens and foreign persons. The ius gentium was therefore a Roman legal codification of the widely accepted international law of the time, and was based on the highly developed commercial law of the Greek city-states and of other maritime powers.[3] The rights afforded by the ius gentium were considered to be held by all persons; it is thus a concept of human rights rather than rights attached to citizenship.
  • Ius conubii: The right to have a lawful marriage with a Roman citizen according to Roman principles,[4] to have the legal rights of the paterfamilias over the family, and for the children of any such marriage to be counted as Roman citizens.
  • Ius migrationis: The right to preserve one's level of citizenship upon relocation to a polis of comparable status. For example, members of the cives Romani (see below) maintained their full civitas when they migrated to a Roman colony with full rights under the law: a colonia civium Romanorum. Latins also had this right, and maintained their ius Latii if they relocated to a different Latin state or Latin colony (Latina colonia). This right did not preserve one's level of citizenship should one relocate to a colony of lesser legal status; full Roman citizens relocating to a Latina colonia were reduced to the level of the ius Latii, and such a migration and reduction in status had to be a voluntary act.
  • The right of immunity from some taxes and other legal obligations, especially local rules and regulations.[5]
  • The right to sue in the courts and the right to be sued.

Roman citizenship was required in order to enlist in the Roman legions, but this was sometimes ignored. Citizen soldiers could be beaten by the centurions and senior officers for reasons related to discipline. Non-citizens joined the Auxilia and gained citizenship through service.

Classes of citizenship



Cives Romani


  • The optimo iure, who also held these rights as well as the ius suffragii and ius honorum (the additional rights to vote and to hold office).


The Latini were a class of citizens who held the Latin Right (ius Latii), or the rights of ius commercii and ius migrationis, but not the ius conubii. The term Latini originally referred to the Latins, citizens of the Latin League who came under Roman control at the close of the Latin War, but eventually became a legal description rather than a national or ethnic one. Freedmen slaves, those of the cives Romani convicted of crimes, or citizens settling Latin colonies could be given this status under the law.


Socii or foederati were citizens of states which had treaty obligations with Rome, under which typically certain legal rights of the state's citizens under Roman law were exchanged for agreed levels of military service, i.e. the Roman magistrates had the right to levy soldiers for the Roman legions from those states. However, foederati states that had at one time been conquered by Rome were exempt from payment of tribute to Rome due to their treaty status.

Growing dissatisfaction with the rights afforded to the socii, and with the growing manpower demands of the legions (due to the protracted Jugurthine War and the Cimbrian War) led eventually to the Social War of 91-88 BC in which the Italian allies revolted against Rome.





A peregrinus (plural peregrini) was originally any person who was not a full Roman citizen, that is someone who was not a member of the cives Romani. With the expansion of Roman law to include more gradations of legal status, this term became less used, but the term peregrini included those of the Latini, socii, and provinciales, as well as those subjects of foreign states.

Citizenship as a tool of Romanization




Previously Alexander the Great had tried to "mingle" his Greeks with the Persians, Egyptians, Syrians, etc. in order to assimilate the people of the conquered Persian Empire, but after his death this policy was largely ignored by his successors. The idea was not to assimilate, but to turn a defeated and potentially rebellious enemy (or their sons) into Roman citizens. Instead of having to wait for the unavoidable revolt of a conquered people (a tribe or a city-state) like Sparta and the conquered Helots, Rome tried to make those under its rule feel that they had a stake in the system.

The Edict of Caracalla


The Book of Acts indicates that Paul the Apostle was a Roman citizen by birth - though not clearly specifying which class of citizenship - a fact which had considerable bearing on Paul's career and on the way he shaped the new religion of Christianity.

However, by the century previous to Caracalla, Roman citizenship had already lost much of its exclusiveness and become more available.[6]

See also


  1. ^ Hans Volkmann: Municipium. In: Der Kleine Pauly. vol. 3, Stuttgart 1969, col. 1464-1469.
  2. ^ Plutarch, Life of Romulus 16.4.
  5. ^ Catholic Resources
  6. ^ Geoffrey W. Bromiley (1979). The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing. pp. 965-. ISBN 978-0-8028-3781-3.

Further reading

  • Atkins, Jed W. 2018. Roman Political Thought. Key Themes in Ancient History. Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press, 2018.
  • Cecchet, Lucia and Anna Busetto, eds. 2017. Citizens in the Graeco-Roman World: Aspects of Citizenship from the Archaic Period to AD 212. Mnemosyne Supplements, 407. Leiden; Boston: Brill.
  • Gardner, Jane. 1993. Being a Roman Citizen. London: Routledge.
  • Howarth, Randal S. 2006. The Origins of Roman Citizenship. Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen Press.
  • Nicolet, Claude. 1980. The World of the Citizen In Republican Rome. Berkeley: University of California Press.

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