UNDERSTANDING THE CONSTITUTIO ANTONINIANA

On the whole, the issue of legal integration is still extremely difficult, if we consider for instance the development of the debate about the Constitutio Antoniniana. John Crook, arguably the patron saint of this volume, called the topic of interaction between the local laws and the law of Rome, Reichsrecht and Volksrecht, much too difficult to treat in the book Law and Life of Rome.^[71] However, his rather short remarks on the matter have stood the test of time remarkably well.

He stated that Rome did not destroy the legal systems of her subjects, but equally that we do not know how much effect the rules laid down by jurists have in the slums of Rome or the remote countryside of Gaul. The whole picture is much more varied and contains contradictory elements, such as peregrines adopting Roman legal forms in Transylvanian tablets and Roman provincial courts accepting peregrine rules. Crook also stressed that everything should be taken into account keeping in mind two things: first that most of our evidence is from Egypt and, second, that the effect of the Constitutio Antoniniana is very controversial.^[72]

The view furthered in the traditional literature is that the Constitutio Antoniniana bestowed upon all free inhabitants of the Empire Roman citizenship. It meant the unification and Romanisation of the territory of the Empire, resulting in an absolute monarchy where free cities were henceforth subjected to imperial legislation and commands. Rudolf Sohm, in his classic manual of Roman law from 1911, stated it succinctly: one emperor, one state, one law.^[73] Max Kaser, the designated traditional Romanist of this meeting, affirmed exactly the same: that in the post-classical time the legal order was unified because the division between the ius civile and ius gentium lost its significance after the Constitutio Antoniniana as all free men became Roman citizens and were consequently subject to the ius civile.^[74]

The history of interpretations of the Constitutio Antoniniana is long and convoluted: Mitteis saw its introduction as a battle of laws, in which Roman law reduced local laws to illegal custom.

In the 1930s SchГ¶nbauer proposed a dual citizenship, in which both the Roman and local laws continue their existence perfectly legally. More recently, both Modrzejewski and Gallo imagined that Roman law reduced and incorporated local law to the level of local custom, which had a secondary validity. The most recent observers such as Amelotti have observed that later emperors such as Diocletian and Constantine tried to reduce the influence of local laws.^[75] ^{^[76] As is evident from the latest contributions to this debate, such as by Livia Migliardi Zingale, the clarity of those universal statements has become enmeshed in papyrological and epigraphical debates. On the Constitutio Antoniniana this started in 1910 with the publication of the Giessen papyrus 40.I and produced a plethora of literature. As Sherwin-White wrote, nobody has managed to explain the Giessen papyrus in a way that would fit the hard core of the Constitutio Antoniniana in the historical sources. The crucial question is the status of the dediticii, or former enemies who had surrenВdered. Scholars are more or less divided on whether or not the papyrus contains a limitation in the grant of citizenship on the part of the dediticii.¹¹ For example, Christoph Sasse, who wrote the still relevant book on the Constitutio Antoniniana, chose deliberately to leave out any consideration of its effect on the history of the Empire.^[77]
There have been many attempts at finding the real effect of the Constitutio Antoniniana. It has been noted that there is a tremendous increase in the occurrence of the name Aurelius after AD 212 in Dura. A similar increase is visible also in Egypt and Syria, but peregrine names do survive. Additionally there is an increase in the number of imperial constitutions in AD 212-213.^[78] The crucial question has been whether the Constitutio Antoniniana really meant that all free inhabitants of the Empire gained citizenship.
Some say that there was a distinct difference between different classes of provincials, those of, for example, Greek cities in Egypt and those of subjugated underВlings.^[79] Others claim that there is no reason to suspect that rural populaВtions would have been excluded, and that the prejudice for cities is of Greek origin and thus does not reflect Roman practice, with the exception of the Egyptians, whom only the discipline of military service could make citizens.^[80] If everybody gained citizenship, did they also begin using Roman law? Modrzejewski claims that legal Romanisation in Egypt was very slow both before and after the Constitutio Antoniniana. The local laws were subordiВnated to the Roman laws, included in the system, and there are examples of local laws turned into provincial customs.^[81] He concludes that Roman law was not thrust upon the natives, but rather only the most obscene customs (according to Roman standards, that is) were controlled and sometimes accepted, like endogamic marriages in Egypt.^[82] To sum up, it is now usually accepted that the question of whether the Constitutio Antoniniana led to the immediate adoption of Roman civil law by peregrini cannot be adequately studied because of the paucity of contemporary evidence. Those relying more on the papyrological evidence tend to claim that it proves that no such wholesale adoption occurred.^[83]
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Source: Cairns J.W., Plessis P.J. du. (eds.). Beyond Dogmatics: Law and Society in the Roman World. Edinburgh University Press,2007. - 236 p.. 2007

UNDERSTANDING THE CONSTITUTIO ANTONINIANA

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