Expert: Irulan Serena - 5/24/2004

Question
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Okay. Let's try this. How about a Roman citizen's identity? 100 B.C.-400 A.D.?


Followup To
Question -
How did free citizens,subjects, and slaves identify their social class and themselves in ancient literate and preliterate societies?

How easy was it to falsify yourself?
Answer -
This is  too broad a topic to respond to without some type of parameters such as culture, location and time.

Your question is applicable to any and all cultures of ancient times in any location on earth.

Your question is similiar to an assignment from one of my classes on a senior or graduate level of anthropology, [possibly Anth 4883] Comparative Cultures,  which compares environments, economies, social and political, organizations and other aspects of culture among selected literate and preliterate societies.  Although experts in AE are not permitted to answer assignment questions, I can give you some direction....first determine, as I said above, location, time and cultures, without these parameters this question will be impossible to answer...then proceed to anthropology sites which deal with these topics.

Cordially,

Iru  

Answer
Greetings Charlie,

Time and place parameters are now precise and an answer is possible.

Here is a brief summary.

Every five years, each male Roman citizen had to register in Rome for the census. In this he had to declare his family, wife, children, slaves and riches. Should he fail to do this, his possessions would be confiscated and he would be sold into slavery.

Registration meant freedom. A master wishing to free his slave needed only to enter him in the censor's list as a citizen (manumissio censu). Slave would automatically become a citizen with the same rights as his former master.

Roman citizenship was acquired in a variety of way:

1 The most common way to acquire citizenship was through birth.  The status of the child was determined by the fathers standing at time of conception, or in the case of birth outside of wedlock, the status of the child was that of the mothers at the time of birth.  

2 induction – into the Roman legions –

3 adoption – Roman family adopting a foreigner or a slave

4 assimilation  - conquered territories – the people, specially the nobility were automatically given citizenship for several reasons: to incorporate them into the system, to avoid political problems.

5 sale – in the latter times of the Empire citizenships were sold due to severe losses of Roman citizens due to constant problems of  sustained  and plagues.

6 Slaves freed by Roman citizens automatically became citizens themselves.

7 Citizenship was also bestowed upon individuals, cities, or provinces as a reward for services rendered to the state or imperial family, gained through bribery, by right of being born in an Roman colony, or through one being placed on a request list.

Proof of citizenship:  

Roman citizens were considered citizens of Rome, the city and capital of the Empire, and not per say of the whole Roman Empire itself

Proof of   citizenship could be determined through reference to the census archives where the name of every citizen was kept, or through the presentation of a diptych, a small wooden birth certificate.

The nobility had a bronze,  silver or gold   diptych indicating their citizenship status.

Anyone in possession of these ‘birth certificates' who did not own them and obtained them by trickery were sentenced to death since it was assumed that the owner of the diptych had been killed.

Slaves names, origin and abilities were also inscribed into the books of the family, as well as the books of the community, so it was not too difficult to keep track of slaves.


There was no such thing as identity theft in Rome …. Becoming a citizen during the time you indicate was not that difficult, all it took was money, connections or political ‘favors'.   Because of the constant wars, as I stated above, Roman citizenry was depleted from time to time so it was necessary to incorporate more people into the Roman machine  for several reasons and the main one was taxes.  The only Roman citizens exempt from taxes were the nobility.

The following sites will give you more information.


http://www.ualberta.ca/~csmackay/CLASS_378/Citizenship.html

http://www.vroma.org/~bmcmanus/roman_names.html   

http://www.vroma.org/~bmcmanus/socialclass.html

http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/ancient/asbook09.html

Hope this has helped.

Cordially,

Iru