Peter Jones

Livy on immigration policy

As Livy explains, it was Rome’s boast that from early times they understood the virtues of intelligent dealing with outsiders

issue 12 September 2015

In the migration crisis, the EU is currently acting just like the ancients, as if border controls did not exist, though the mass, peaceful migration we see today was not a tremendously common occurrence then.

The reason is that in the ancient world, every male was a potential warrior. So in conflict they would either fight to defend their land and, if they lost, be killed or sold into slavery, or they would flee, en masse, as Germanic tribes did into the Roman Empire in the 4th century ad, escaping the Hun onslaught. Since this represented a potential threat, Romans fought off some, but welcomed others, giving them land and status in return for service in the army. Many did well out of it.

At the individual level, however, there was constant movement of people wanting to better themselves.

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