THE DISCOVERY AND TEXT OF THE ANTONINE CONSTITUTION
In 1901, the library of the University of Giessen acquired a number of papyri, among which was a damaged roll containing three edicts of the emperor Caracalla, as well as an extract from a further document clarifying how one should implement the last of the three imperial edicts.
As rapidly became clear, the first of the three edicts is a Greek text of the citizenship decree. This received its first publication by Paul Meyer in 1910 and has been the object of concentrated attention ever since, both by papyrologists seeking to clarify the text and lawyers and historians trying to understand its content.42 Although there is much room for disagreement about restoration of the damaged portions of the text, little about those disagreements bears on the historical-interpretive questions of relevance to this project. What folÂlows is therefore a working text and translation, intended to convey the content of the relatively uncontroversial portions of the text to non-specialists (I refrain from printing the dots under letters that conventionally signify the editor’s doubts about even the letters printed below):1. Αυτοκρ⅛τωρ Καrσαρ Μa]ρκος Αυρηλr[ος Σεουηρος] Aντωννο[ς] Ε[υσεβη]ς λεγει∙
2. ]η μaλλον αν[................... τ⅛]ς αrτrας καr το[υς] λ[ογι]σμους
3. θ]εοrς [τοr]ς aθ[αν]aτοις ευχαρrστησαrμr, δτr τη[ς] τοιαυτη[ς]
4.
]ησ με συ[νετ]ηρησαν/ Τοιγ[α]ρουν νομrζω [ο]υτω με5. ]ως δυ[ν]ασθαι τη μεγαλεroτητr αυτων τo rκανoν ποι-
6. εrν oσ]aκις ε⅛ν υ[π]εrσελθ[ωσ]rν εiς τους εμους ⅛ν[θρ]ωπους
7. ]ν θεων συνεr[σ]ενεγ[κοr]μr. Δrδωμr τοrς συνaπα-
8. σιν τ⅛ τ]ην οrκουμενην π[ολεrτ]εrαν 'Pωμαiων, μενοντος
9. του δrκαrου των πολrτευμ]aτων χωρ[rς] των [..]δεrτrκrων. 6[φ]εiλεr γ⅛ρ τo
10. ]νειν π⅛ντα α[...]α ηδη κ[α]r τη νrκη ενπεριει-
11. ληφ ]αγμα. [..]λωσει [την] μεγαλεroτητα [το]υ 'Pωμα∣i-∣
[Another 16 lines follow in which only a tiny number of letters are preserved.]
41 Pagden 1995; see also Pagden 2015, 1-37.
The extraordinary power and sweep of Pagden’s work can be nuanced in specific case, as he himself allows. It merits observation, however, that the arguments against imperial Rome as exemplar often took the route of privileging other voices, or other periods, within Roman experience, as in Harrington’s invocation of Cicero’s claim for libertas in the context of imperium: see Armitage 1992 and 2000. On the form taken by (legal) universalism in the post-Napoleonic world see Pitts 2012.42 Sasse 1962 and 1965 provide a fairly comprehensive review of the first half-century’s publicaÂtions. Kuhlmann 1994 provides further bibliography and re-edits the text, with German translaÂtion. The text is widely available with English translation: electronically, one might consult Heichelheim 1941.
Imperator Caesar Marcus Aurelius Augustus Antoninus Pius says: [------------ ] rather [--------- ]
the causes and the considerations [------------- ] I might give thanks to the immortal gods, because
they preserved me [from so] great [a danger?]. Hence, I believe that I therefore [----------------- ]
would be able to act appropriate to their greatness, [if I were.], as often as [other people?] enter into my people, lead them [to the temples] of the gods. I grant to all [— -------------------------- ] throughout the inhabited Roman citizenship, with [the claims of their com- munit]ies remaining unimpaired, excepting only [supplementary regulations?]. For it ought [- ] all [----- ] already also through victory [--------- ] [------------- ] the
greatness of the Roman [people].[37]
A number of facts are immediately apparent: Caracalla claims to act from religious sentiment, not fiscal considerations at all. Something had threatened his life; he escaped; he wishes to give thanksgiving the gods. It may be that he alludes to the conspiracy that he attributed to his brother Geta as an ex post justification for having murdered him. In keeping with Roman religious ideology, according to which parÂticularly significant religious acts might be enhanced by their iterated performance by the entirety of the citizen body, Caracalla urges that thanksgiving for his own salvation would be more appropriately rendered by more people, and so grants citiÂzenship “to all those dwelling under my rule.”
The vocabulary and therefore the thought behind this text remain puzzling at many points.
For example, neither the phrase “my human beings” nor “the Roman world” were terms of art in Roman public law. Although no contemporaneous eviÂdence survives to suggest that Caracalla’s language presented any challenge to comprehension, Ulpian’s paraphrase offers a salutory caution about how quite idiÂosyncratic actions by autocrats can be translated into normative languages and so achieve their effects. In that light, it is perhaps worth observing how different, too, is the vocabulary employed by Augustine in his reference to this moment:Neque enim et Romani non vivebant sub legibus suis, quas ceteris inponebant? Hoc si fieret sine Marte et Bellona, ut nec Victoria locum haberet, nemine vincente ubi nemo pugnaverat: nonne Romanis et ceteris una esset eademque condicio? Praesertim si mox fieret, quod postea gratisÂsime atque humanissime factum est, ut omnes ad Romanum imperium pertinentes societatem acciperent civitatis et Romani cives essent ac sic esset omnium quod erat ante paucorum...[38]
Did not the Romans, too, live under their own laws, the ones they imposed on others? If this had come about without Mars or Bellona, such that (the goddess) Victory had played no role - which is to say, with no one conquering anyone else, as no one had fought: would not the same condition exist for both Romans and the rest? Especially if what was done later, most graciously and most humanely, had been done right away, namely, that all those subject to RoÂman power / belonging to the Roman empire received the fellowship of citizenship and became Roman citizens and thus what had formerly belong to a few became the property of all.
Pertinere and imperium both have legal meanings appropriate to the context: the former can describe relationships of right and belonging, and the latter, whence English “empire,” originally meant something like the “legitimate power of comÂmand” of a Roman magistrate (not least as directed to Roman citizens) before, by unsurprising metonymy, it came to designate the political form over which the RoÂman people itself exercised its power.
Ulpian was of course a highly-ranked official and a lawyer, and his paraphrase is no worse than Augustine’s. What is more, neither author cites Caracalla’s justifiÂcation for his act, nor does either take any interest in the legally precise and contexÂtually appropriate material that appears to follow, in which it is specified that the grant of citizenship is not intended to disrupt obligations owed by individuals to local public institutions. After a fashion the diction of each is appropriate to his inÂterest: Ulpian seeks to specify all those to whom the law applied; Augustine seeks to emphasize the upending of imperially-inflected power relations effected by the act. The diction of both also gestures to a central conundrum of the act itself: the law of persons was an imprecise and partial instrument with which to overturn the political, ideological and public law structures of empire. This fact no doubt conÂtributed to the partiality of its effect and the complexity of its legacy in aftermath.