THE “THIRD-CENTURY CRISIS”?
Broader historical context needs to be considered here. Asia Minor in the third century AD experienced Persian and Gothic invasions, usurpations and, for a time, effective loss of Roman sovereignty during the troubled reign of Gallienus, and it is a distinct possibility that the end of legal pluralism in that region was connected at least partially to this rupture in the exercise of Roman government.
There was no certain source of its confirmation for years, and when stability returned, tetrarchic provincial reforms made the presence of Roman jurisdiction considerably more ubiquitous than in the Severan period.[120] In the mid-third century Aphrodisian privileges were still confirmed. Half a century later they were gone, and a governor was being praised in Latin verse on the base of his statue, for his readiness to “pour out the laws” from his tribunal.[121]This cannot be the universal explanation; Modestinus' reply concerning estates on Chios or the use of the Roman law of persons at Termessus came considerably earlier than the temporary collapse of central authority in the East. However, the increasing availability of Roman justice, particularly in the less urbanized areas, was a contributing factor even earlier and arguably became an important one at an early stage, in fact preceding the constitutio Antoniniana itself. While in the late Republic and early Empire proconsular justice, directly accessible as it was only in a handful of cities (and not in all of them at the same time), was probably less easily available to an ordinary litigant than even Attalid royal justice had been, divisions within provinces that prefigured the Diocletianic reforms were beginning to develop by the Antonine period at the latest. By the Severan period, procuratorial justice became more accessible at the ground level, perhaps including mini-assize tours within procuratorial districts.[122] While this is a “chicken-and-egg” situation and we do not know for certain whether the greater accessibility of Roman justice was driven by increasing access to Roman substantive law or vice versa, the latter is perhaps suggested by the fact that it preceded Caracalla's pronouncement.[123] Fiscal and military factors could be much more important in the increased presence of governmental representatives in that period, but once present they would inevitably attract judicial business.[124] The constitutio Antoniniana and later the crisis of Roman authority in the region would then simply reinforce an already existing tendency.
If that were the case, it would imply a very piecemeal change, not driven by any blueprint centrally determined by the emperor's legal advisers.
The disappearance of the local bronze coinage of the poleis of Asia Minor (which had something of a Renaissance in the reign of Gordian III) provides an instructive comparison.[125] Its decline broadly corresponded to the unfolding of the “third-century crisis” in the region, but one of the ways in which the crisis seems to have manifested itself was the diversity of local changes in monetary standards and minting patterns.58 In Pisidia and Pamphylia, which were probably untouched by the depredations of the Goths until quite late, minting of local bronzes persisted, anomalously, down to the reign of Tacitus (AD 275-276).59 It could well be the case that in the legal sphere the disappearance of local privileges proceeded along the same haphazard lines. While the constitutio Antoniniana undoubtedly broadened the circle of those who could potentially expect recourse to Roman law to advance their personal interests, the transition from local law as a privileged system within a particular community to it having the status of a semi-officially recognised “local custom” could have been a much more complicated affair.6.