Militia and civitas between Third and Sixth Century CE

We need to consider again the Constitutio Antoniniana. Actually, depending on whether one trusts in one or the other of the many interpretations of its enactment, one can propose divergent historical reconstructions on the theme of Roman citizenship in the 3rd and 4th centuries. If we read the text of P. Giss. 40 col. I as a legal document, it is very difficult to conclude that it proposes a clause of exclusion in line 9. Therefore, in my opinion, those conjectures that connect it to the need – felt by Caracalla and his counsellors – to safeguard the long-standing custom of recruiting military units among the so-called gentes devictae and, therefore, among the dediticii, are not persuasive. Moreover, this essay, after examining the hypotheses formulated by historians (in particular Ralph Mathisen, Alessandro Barbero, Fausto Goria, Émilienne Demougeot), attempts to identify the rules that governed access to Roman Citizenship in Late Antiquity.