'Barbari' e civitas Romana. Dal 212 alle soglie del V secolo: una ricognizione delle fonti

Two topics - undoubtedly contiguous, but not entirely homogeneous - are at the centre of this essay: Roman citizenship and the so-called dediticii on the one hand; on the other hand, the granting of civitas to barbarians either through military service and honourable discharge from the Army or through viritane grants. An obligatory starting point is the constitutio Antoniniana. Indeed, depending on whether one or another of the many interpretations of its provision is accepted, one can propose markedly divergent reconstructions of the history of Roman citizenship in the third and fourth centuries. After examining the hypotheses formulated by historians (in particular Ralph Mathisen, Pierangelo Catalano, Alessandro Barbero, Émilienne Demougeot), this essay attempts to identify the rules that governed access to Roman Citizenship in Late Antiquity.