In AD 212, partly to raise tax, Caracalla made citizenship automatic for all free peoples within the empire. But even though many foreigners/barbarians (e.g. Germanic peoples such as Goths, Visigoths and Vandals) settled within the empire to serve in the Roman army (etc.) after that date, we know of very few granted full citizenship. What was going on?
The answer lies in Rome’s most brilliant, and certainly influential, invention — a public, structured and codified system of civil law (ius civile). Access to this guarantor of civilised dealings between men was eagerly sought, but it all depended on one’s status. Various disabilities (e.g. being a slave, or a freedman, or guilty of certain crimes) debarred one from all or some aspects of it. The important thing was to be free, and after Caracalla it seems that as long as you were a free barbarian, you had full access to the ius civile like any Roman citizen, if you wanted to take advantage of it.
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