AHQ: Was the Edict of Caracalla worth it?

[GauchoBadger]

The Constitutio Antoniniana, issued by emperor Caracalla in 212 AD and frequently known, thus, as the "Edict of Caracalla", was an imperial edict which granted citizenship to all subjects contemporaneously living in the Roman Empire.
The reasons as to why Caracalla issued this edict are still being discussed. The main appointed advantages of the edict were:
-More citizens means more people to tax, and, thus, more revenue.
-Only full citizens were able to participate in the legions. With more citizens available, more legionnaires can be trained.
However, it did come with disadvantages:
-Before the edict, the only way to gain citizenship as anon-italian was to complete service in the army. With citizenship already guaranteed, it could be argued that joining the army became less attractive, diminishing the ammount of soldiers available to the empire.
-Among some others i am eager to be told about.
So, i ask: do you believe the Edict of Caracalla was necessary, or at least favourable to the empire? Or not?

 

[GauchoBadger]

Sorry for double post.

 

[The Professor]

Sorry for double post.

You can delete your other one fairly easily as noone has posted in it!

 

[Salvador79]

This is not exactly alt-hist, but we could use it as a Basis for discussions of alternatives.

Universal citizenship formalised the de facto far-reaching cultural and social changes occurred in the Empire. As such, it was good, even if the Motivation may have been an expansion of the taxbase. It brought the Empire closer to being a state of all its peoples, instead of still being just one ruling over them.

What marred its balance in this regard is that, in a time of hollowed-out municipal self-administration, this new inclusive label of citizenship came with little meaning with regards to political participation; it was somewhat hollow itself. When it could have done something about this problem, e.g. by reforming the military in a themata-like way based on the (now officially romanised and considered as equals in theory) civitates.

 

[Russian]

-More citizens means more people to tax, and, thus, more revenue.

That's the most obscure issue for me.
I mean in the Roman Empire (by Caracalla's time) everybody paid taxes. And since the very beginning it was the (Roman) citizens who were conquerors and it was non-citizens who were conquered (or at least acknowledged the Roman power).
How could that happen that the descendants of the conquered (non-citizens) started to pay less taxes than the descendants of the conquerors (citizens)? It just doesn't make any sense for me.
Maybe there was a (roughly) equal taxation of the citizens and non-citizens... that I may believe.

-Only full citizens were able to participate in the legions. With more citizens available, more legionnaires can be trained.

That's a possible explanation. That made conscription easier.

I mean all male citizens (in theory) are obliged to serve in the army, if there is a need; though in the Empire of Caracalla's time forced conscription was rare.
With non-citizens it was not that simple (again we are speaking about Caracalla's time) - you can conscript them by force if there's war urgency, but for a period of that urgency; I mean not for 15-25 years like legionaries. And the non-Romans served in auxiliaries. And if in auxiliaries voluntarily, by their free will, they serve the same 15-25 years.

Actually that's too complicated, a headache, pain in the butt of any official who in charge of conscription (or post-conscription law trials). Because you know there were no passports, there were no certificates. Actually nobody in the Empire had any official paper proving that s/he was a (Roman) citizen or a non-citizen.*
* There might be an exception that 0,001% of people had such paper if they had been under investigation or sued in court of law because of this 'citizenship issue'; and those non-citizens who served their full time in auxiliaries got such certificate on their retirement IIRC.

If everybody is a citizen and has equal conscription liabilities, the only trouble left was slaves serving in the army by deceit. It happened quite often, and by Caracalla's time was not
encouraged (under normal circumstances).

-Before the edict, the only way to gain citizenship as anon-italian was to complete service in the army. With citizenship already guaranteed, it could be argued that joining the army became less attractive, diminishing the ammount of soldiers available to the empire.

I guess such insentive as gaining citizenship after complete service in the army lost its' attraction by Caracalla's time; the non-citizens and (Roman) citizens got roughly equal in their rights. I mean there were some advantages and disadvantages in both statuses, but roughly they were equal.

the Edict of Caracalla was necessary, or at least favourable to the empire?

This division (citizen - non-citizen) became a relic of the glorious Roman past by Caracalla's time. It only made things complicated.
That's why the Edict of Caracalla went mostly unnoticed by Caracalla's contemporaries.

 

[starman]

-Before the edict, the only way to gain citizenship as anon-italian was to complete service in the army. With citizenship already guaranteed, it could be argued that joining the army became less attractive, diminishing the ammount of soldiers available to the empire.

Is there any evidence the Roman army shrank in the years subsequent to the edict? Not to my knowledge. Now we all know the Roman army suffered terrible defeats around midcentury but that's not the same issue. AFAIK Roman armies remained big and capable for the rest of the third century and well into the fourth.

 

[Herucalmo]

So essentially the Edict was a belated recognition of the political and societal changes that had already taken place?

 

[Russian]

So essentially the Edict was a belated recognition of the political and societal changes that had already taken place?

Yes, I think, something like that.

 

[Caedite]

I think Mary Beard has declared the Edict the point the Empire died. Or something to that effect.

 

[TyranicusMaximus]

I think Mary Beard has declared the Edict the point the Empire died. Or something to that effect.

It is in 212 that Prof. Beard ends her work SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome.

In her own words, "When everyone is a citizen, new forms of discrimination are invented to place barriers between the haves and the have-nots, the privileged and the non-privileged. And, really in some way you could say that 212, looking forward, marks the beginning of a sort of feudal Europe." https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/victim-success-mary-beard-discusses-collapse-roman-republic/

So her belief is that the Edict was the end of the project of Roman citizenship. At any rate, since Rome long dispensed with republican pretense, even citizenship itself did not give you political power.

 

[edgeworthy]

It is in 212 that Prof. Beard ends her work SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome.

In her own words, "When everyone is a citizen, new forms of discrimination are invented to place barriers between the haves and the have-nots, the privileged and the non-privileged. And, really in some way you could say that 212, looking forward, marks the beginning of a sort of feudal Europe." https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/victim-success-mary-beard-discusses-collapse-roman-republic/

So her belief is that the Edict was the end of the project of Roman citizenship. At any rate, since Rome long dispensed with republican pretense, even citizenship itself did not give you political power.

As my Classics Professor explained it the Empire had already divided into Honestiores and Humiliores. The Honestiores were persons of status and property, the Humiliores persons of low social status. Only the latter were subject to certain kinds of punishment (crucifixion, torture, and corporal punishment).

 

[Russian]

I think Mary Beard has declared the Edict the point the Empire died. Or something to that effect.

It depends on your definition of 'empire'...

 

[starman]

@starman I can tell you that by the dawn of the 5th century, the Roman Army was a husk of its former self in terms of numbers; as to when this decline happened, you'd have to ask someone else.

The situation in the West was especially grave in 408 CE and afterwards. But recruitment among citizens seems to have declined by c 380 CE. The Empire just didn't seem as militarily potent or resilient as it had been for centuries prior to that time.

 

[Alcsentre Calanice]

It is in 212 that Prof. Beard ends her work SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome.

In her own words, "When everyone is a citizen, new forms of discrimination are invented to place barriers between the haves and the have-nots, the privileged and the non-privileged. And, really in some way you could say that 212, looking forward, marks the beginning of a sort of feudal Europe." https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/victim-success-mary-beard-discusses-collapse-roman-republic/

So her belief is that the Edict was the end of the project of Roman citizenship. At any rate, since Rome long dispensed with republican pretense, even citizenship itself did not give you political power.

From this point of view, feudal Europe began in 49 BCE with the end of the Roman Republic. Because once citizens lost their political rights, citizenship itself loses its central characteristic.

 

[Raferty]

Militarily speaking, while there was a clear degradation in quality by the mid 5th century, the post Edict Roman Army arguably was much better suited for its task and much more flexible than before, and the military culture of the Roman Army was quite powerful and impacted the development of frontier regions substantially. Soldiering became a hereditary profession in some cases and there were many aspects of this that were quite positive for Rome. Even in 406 when the Germans crossed the Rhine, had there not been a bunch of civil war related stuff going on, the army would have been able to head them off fairly easily.

The issues with the late Empire were that the city and Mediterranean based economy broke down during the Crisis of the Third Century from war and plague, and that the massive imperial bureaucracy that formed in the aftermath that was able to put things back together did its job mostly by just taxing the ever living shit out of anything that moved, leading to localization of interests and allegiances to occur. The Late Roman political state was far more advanced and sophisticated than in the Principate, as was the Army, but the massive economic growth that came from intra-Mediterranean trade and proposperous, semi-autonomous cities broke down.

As the economy failed, the political state became rife with looting and corruption due to its massive size and power, and the armies became more dependent on temporary contracts with those outside the empire's borders to fill the ranks.

 

[Avalon]

That's the most obscure issue for me.
I mean in the Roman Empire (by Caracalla's time) everybody paid taxes. And since the very beginning, it was the (Roman) citizens who were conquerors and it was non-citizens who were conquered (or at least acknowledged the Roman power).

A relatively old thread I know but Roman citizens had two extra taxes to pay when compared to non-citizens. The first was inheritance taxes, which were paid by the beneficiaries on the death of somebody who left them money or property.

Initially, in the Roman Empire it was impractical to levy inheritance taxes on everybody, but by the time of Caracalla, there was a large middle class in the empire and well-regulated methods of collecting taxes. The other tax that was levied on Roman citizens was an indirect tax when slaves were emancipated.

Because of inflation, the monetary value of slaves had risen, and with growing affluence, more masters were freeing their slaves, who often continued to work for them; many slaves were able to buy their own freedom.

Such citizen only taxes were raised: the tax on the manumission was increased from 5% to 10% of the value of the slave, and from 5% to 10% of the value of the inheritance. And he abolished the exemptions for inheritance from a close family member that had previously been established (Dio 79.9.5)

However, the gain from this source was not likely to compensate for the loss of revenue from the poll tax, which hitherto had been imposed on provincials as a token of their being subject people. This tax virtually disappears from Egyptian records after the edict, although one or two later receipts seem to be authentic. It is not impossible that Caracalla, an ardent admirer of Alexander the Great and one who had dreams of uniting the empires of Persia and Rome, took this step of uniting all his subjects in a common bond of Roman citizenship in preparation for the proposed union. However, as mentioned before this step was most likely merely the culmination of a trend that long had been developing in the western provinces and was a natural evolution of the Stoic philosophy of the Antonines, whose heir Caracalla conceived himself to be.