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The oldest document currently available that details the rights of citizenship is the Twelve Tables, ratified c. 449 BC. [1] Much of the text of the Tables only exists in fragments, but during the time of Ancient Rome the Tables would be displayed in full in the Roman Forum for all to see.
The Latin phrase cīvis Rōmānus sum (Classical Latin: [ˈkiːwis roːˈmaːnus ˈsũː]; "I am (a) Roman citizen") is a phrase used in Cicero's In Verrem as a plea for the legal rights of a Roman citizen. [1] When travelling across the Roman Empire, safety was said to be guaranteed to anyone who declared, "civis Romanus sum".
In the Forum, "The Twelve Tables" stated the rights and duties of the Roman citizen. Their formulation was the result of considerable agitation by the plebeian class, who had hitherto been excluded from the higher benefits of the Republic. The law had previously been unwritten and exclusively interpreted by upper-class priests, the pontifices.
Augustus (27 B.C. – 14 AD) instituted laws that allowed peregrini to become citizens through serving in the Roman army or on a city council. Citizen rights were inherited, so children of peregrini who had become citizens were also citizens upon birth. [12] Distinctions between Roman citizens and peregrini continued until 212 AD, when ...
The key phrase is "est civitas eis data" where civitas means "citizenship". In Ancient Rome, the Latin term civitas (Latin pronunciation: [ˈkiːwɪtaːs]; plural civitates), according to Cicero in the time of the late Roman Republic, was the social body of the cives, or citizens, united by law (concilium coetusque hominum jure sociati).
In Roman law, status describes a person's legal status. The individual could be a Roman citizen (status civitatis), unlike foreigners; or he could be free (status libertatis), unlike slaves; or he could have a certain position in a Roman family (status familiae) either as head of the family (pater familias), or as a lower member (filii familias).
Before the Edict, however, a significant number of provincials still were non-Roman citizens and held instead the Latin rights. Therefore, being a Roman citizen remained a well sought-after status until 212. [2] Veterans of the Auxilia were also granted Roman citizenship on discharge.
The Roman people was the body of Roman citizens (Latin: Rōmānī; Ancient Greek: Ῥωμαῖοι Rhōmaîoi) [a] during the Roman Kingdom, the Roman Republic, and the Roman Empire. This concept underwent considerable changes throughout the long history of the Roman civilisation, as its borders expanded and contracted.