1.2 Citizenship
What makes an individual a citizen? What are citizens’ duties and rights? In our society, citizenship is the status of an individual who is a recognized member of a state. It entails specific rights, but also precise duties. It has become increasingly relevant in public debates, as seen by the recent discussions about revoking citizenship to British citizens joining Daesh in Syria. You may think that citizenship is a relatively modern concept, yet the notion originates in the Classical world, and the concept was widely discussed and considered a matter of legislation in ancient Greece and across the Roman empire.
EPQ Suggested questions
In your EPQ project you may want to focus on one of the following questions:
- Who could be called a citizen in Classical Athens and in Republican Rome? And how far did the notion of citizenship change during the Roman empire?
- How far can material culture help our understanding of the role and status of Roman citizens across the empire?
- How far do ancient ideas about citizenship influence modern political thought and our current understanding of the concept of citizenship?
Sources: Greek debate on citizenship
- Demosthenes, Orations
- Aristotle, Constitution of Athens 26.4
- Aristotle, Politics 1275a-b; 1295b; 1317b17ff.
- Aristophanes, Lysistrata 507ff.
- Pseudo-Xenophon, Constitution of Athens 1.2; 1.6; 1.10
- Xenophon, Memoirs of Socrates 2.8.1-5
- Xenophon, Revenues 21.1-5
Sources: Roman debate on citizenship
- Aelius Aristides, The Roman Oration
- Cassius Dio, Roman History 78.9
- Cicero, In Defence of Balbus 11
- Cicero, On the Republic 1.34.52-53
- Constitutio Antoniniana (Edict of Caracalla)
- Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Roman Antiquities 4.24.4-8
- Gaius, The Institutes 1.9-12
- Juvenal, Satires 3.58-106
- Martial, Epigrams 10.76
- Suetonius, Life of Claudius, 15, on clothing and roman citizenship
- Tacitus, Annals 11.23-24
Sources: ancient Greek and Roman material culture
Artefacts
- White-ground lekythos with woman and slave. Great North Museum, Shefton Collection Great (1.2 Lekythos).
- Tombstone of Syrian archer from Housesteads, Great North Museum (1.2 Housesteads).
- Funerary stele of C. Iulius Clemens and C. Iulius Sabinus, from Aquae Mattiacae in Germania Superior (modern Wiesbaden, Germany). The stele depicts two men who had both served in the Roman army. The man to the left had gained Roman citizenship after being honourably discharged from the Roman army and wears therefore a toga (open link)
- Funerary monument for L. Vibius, Vecilia Hila, L. Vibius Felicius Felix and Vibia Prima, freedwoman (Rome: Vatican Museums). Lucius Vibius is a Roman citizen and wears a toga, while Vecilia Hila is showing the ring of the valid citizen marriage (opens link)
- Check the relevance of rings as signs of status in Roman culture (open link).
Inscriptions
- The People of Antioch (Alabanda) honoured with citizenship (IG II3 1 1178) (open link)
- The Lyons Tablet (CIL XIII 1668 = ILS 212) and Tacitus (Ann. 11,23-25), both mentioning a speech given by Claudius in the Senate to support access to the Senate to Gaulish aristocrats.
References
Greek and Roman Political Thought
- Balot, R.K. ed., 2012. A Companion to Greek and Roman Political Thought. John Wiley & Sons.
- Cecchet, L. and A. Busetto, 2017. Citizens in the Graeco-Roman World: Aspects of Citizenship from the Archaic Period to AD 212. Brill.
- Isin, E.F. and Turner, B.S. eds., 2002. Handbook of Citizenship Studies. Sage.
- Salkever, S.G., 2009. The Cambridge Companion to Ancient Greek Political Thought. Cambridge University Press.
Greek Citizenship
- Blok, J., 2017. Citizenship in Classical Athens. Cambridge University Press.
- Jones, P. et al., 1990. The World of Athens. Cambridge University Press.
- Manville, P.B., 1997. The Origins of Citizenship in Ancient Athens. Princeton University Press.
Roman citizenship
- Boatwright, M.T., 2012. Peoples of the Roman World. Cambridge University Press.
- Gardner, J.F., 2002. Being a Roman Citizen. Routledge.
- Imrie, A., 2018. The Antonine Constitution: An Edict for the Caracallan Empire. Brill.
- Nicolet, C., 1980. The World of the Citizen in Republican Rome. Batsford Academic and Educational
- Sherwin-White, A.N., 1973. The Roman Citizenship. Clarendon Press.
Gender, ethnicity, status
- Cantarella, E., 1987. Pandora’s Daughters: The Role and Status of Women in Greek and Roman Antiquity. Johns Hopkins University Press.
- Lefkowitz, M.R. and M.B. Fant, 1992. Women’s Life in Greece and Rome: A Source Book in Translation. Johns Hopkins University Press.
- Neils, J., 2011. Women in the Ancient World. British Museum Press.
- Kennedy, R.F., 2014. Immigrant Women in Athens: Gender, Ethnicity, and Citizenship in the Classical City. Routledge.
- Fisher, N., 2007. ‘Citizens, Foreigners and Slaves in Greek Society’, in K.H. Kinzl (ed.) A Companion to the Classical Greek World. Oxford University Press: 327-349.
- Whitehead, D., 1977. The Ideology of the Athenian Metic. Cambridge University Press.
- Lape, S., 2013. Race and Citizen Identity in the Classical Athenian Democracy. Cambridge University Press.
- Mouritsen, H., 2011. The Freedman in the Roman World. Cambridge University Press.
- Kendal, S., 2013. The Struggle for Roman Citizenship: Romans, Allies and the Wars of 91-77 BC. Gorgias Press.
- Laurence, R. and J. Berry, 1998. Cultural Identity in the Roman Empire. Routledge.
Social status and appearance
- Croom, A., 2010. Roman Clothing and Fashion. Amberley Publishing Limited.
- Fejfer, J., 2009. Roman Portraits in Context (Vol. 2). Walter de Gruyter.
- Hope, V.M., 1997. Constructing Roman identity: Funerary Monuments and Social Structure in the Roman World. Mortality, 2(2), pp.103-121.
Modern debate on citizenship
Citoyens and the French Revolution
- Schama, S., 1989. Citizens: A Chronicle of the French Revolution. Viking.
Displaced Citizens and Refugees in the Modern Era
- Cudd, A.E., and Lee, W., editors. 2016. Citizenship and Immigration: Borders, Migration and Political Membership in a Global Age. Springer Nature.
- Gatrell, P., 2015. The Making of the Modern Refugee. Oxford University Press.
- Newman, E., and van Selm, J., 2003. Refugees and Forced Displacement: International Security, Human Vulnerability, and the State. United Nations University Press.
- Orchard, P., 2014. A Right to Flee: Refugees, States and the Construction of International Cooperation. Cambridge University Press.
- Parekh, S., 2017. Refugees and the Ethics of Forced Displacement. Routledge.
- Sawyer, C. and Blitz, B.K., 2011. Statelessness in the European Union: Displaced, Undocumented, Unwanted. Cambridge University Press.
State-citizens and super-state citizens: what does European citizenship mean?
- Bauböck, R., 2018. Debating Transformations of National Citizenship. Springer.
- Bellamy, R., and Warleigh, A., 2001. Citizenship and Governance in the European Union. Continuum.
- Delanty, G., 2000. Citizenship in a Global Age: Society, Culture, Politics. Open University Press.
- Dobson, L., 2012. Supranational Citizenship. Manchester University Press.
- Guild, E., et al., 2014. The Reconceptualization of European Union Citizenship. Brill.
- Hansen, R., and Weil, P., 2001. Towards a European Nationality: Citizenship, Immigration, and Nationality Law in the EU. Palgrave.
- Isin, E.F., and Nyers, P., 2014. Routledge Handbook of Global Citizenship Studies. Routledge.
- Münch, R., 2001. Nation and Citizenship in the Global Age: From National to Transnational Ties and Identities. Palgrave.
- Schattle, H., 2008. The practices of Global Citizenship. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers.
- Tully, J., 2014. On Global Citizenship. USA Bloomsbury Academic.
- van Eijken, H., 2015. EU Citizenship & the Constitutionalisation of the European Union. Europa Law Publishing.