Irregular emigration and the growing problem of the undocumented is one of the greatest challenges of the 21st century.
Millions of people around the world leave their countries, expelled by armed conflicts or by poverty, in search of m best opportunities in nations more developed.
In response, the governments of these countries spend billions of dollars each year to try to stem this human flow.
Some have proposed solutions.
A day after assuming power last January, the brand new president of the United States, Joe Biden, presented a plan to give a path to citizenship to more than 10 millions of undocumented in that country.
And this week, the president of Colombia, Iván Duque, surprised with a proposal that seeks to regularize the migratory situation of more than one million Venezuelans who e live in the South American nation irregularly.
These initiatives have been applauded by many experts in migration and organizations that help refugees, who have described these plans as “historic”.
However, Biden and Duque’s proposals pale next to an initiative taken by a Roman emperor in the 3rd century.
Marcus Aurelius Severus Antoninus Augustus – better known by his nickname, Caracalla- ruled the Roman Empire between the years 211 Y 217, during the so-called Dynasty of the Severe.
Despite not being one of the most remembered emperors, Caracalla left his mark on history a by achieving an unrivaled milestone: the greatest grant of citizenship of all time.
30 millions
When Caracalla assumed power, the Roman Empire stretched from the Middle East to Hispania (as it was known to the Iberian Peninsula) and from Egypt to Britannia (the island of Great Britain).
But only the inhabitants of Italy, the Romans who lived in other provinces (and their descendants) and a select group of inhabitants of the Empire had full Roman citizenship .
That changed overnight on 11 July 212.
Historical records indicate that the C was published that day onstitutio Antoniniana (Antonine Constitution), also known as the Edict of Caracalla.
The edict granted all free men of the Empire full Roman citizenship and all free women of the Empire the same rights as Roman women.
- Who was the man who put an end to the Roman Empire?
- Caligula: murderer and depraved, or victim of history? (and three other big questions about his reign)
“It meant that, at a stroke, 30 millions of people obtained Roman citizenship “, highlighted the historian and expert in classical studies at the University of Cambridge, Mary Beard.
“It was the largest grant of citizenship in the history of the planet, and made everyone, including those who lived in this remote province (part of today’s United Kingdom), part of the larger world”, highlighted the academic in 1200 during a debate on the contributions of the Roman civilization.
Equal rights
Carmen Lázaro Guillamón, professor of Roman Law at the Jaume I University in Castellón de la Plana, Spain, explained to BBC Mundo what impact Caracalla’s decision had on the lives of those who obtained citizenship.
“Suddenly opened a whole range of possibilities for these people,” said the lawyer.
“Obtain citizenship Roman was considered something very valuable because at that time Rome was the center of the world “, he explained.
” Having citizenship allowed the inhabitants of the provinces to have the same rights as the Romans. It meant having access to the entire sphere of Roman civil law. ”
That not only facilitated access to public office. It also gave equal rights in civil matters such as marriages or successions.
In addition, it had an important impact for those who traded in the vast Roman Empire.
Lázaro Guillamón exemplifies it like this.
“It is as if today a Swiss company wanted to do business in Uruguay. And suddenly you can do it on equal terms. It made your life easier ”, he pointed out.
The reasons
Some historians They point out that Caracalla’s decision to grant citizenship to the majority of his subjects was not motivated by the desire to expand rights, but rather had much less noble purposes.
In his work “Roman History” the politician and military man Cassius Dio (also known as Dion Cassius), a contemporary of Caracalla, stated that the emperor’s intention was to increase the tax revenue of the Empire by increasing the number of people who had to pay taxes.
The purpose would have been to finance the costly military campaigns on the northern border against the Germans and in the east against the Parthians.
The strategy, if true, was not successful.
Two decades later After the C onstitutio Antoniniana was published, the Roman Empire entered what is known as the crisis of the 3rd century, a period of great political, economic and social disorder that divided the territory into three separate entities: the Roman, Gallic and Palmyra Empire.
It is also curious – recognizes Lázaro Guillamón – that the Edict of Caracalla seems to have left few records , despite its massive effects.
” There are very few later sources, both historical, legal and literary, that cite the C onstitutio Antoniniana and this is curious for such a relevant milestone whose impact must have been profound “, he observes.
” Capable was a long-awaited measure that it did not cause the expected impact, “he speculates.
“Or maybe it didn’t quite please the jurists and scholars of the time and tiptoed past (without making noise).”
Comparisons
Beyond this, Lázaro Guillamón believes that the universalization of Roman citizenship leaves some valuable teachings for today’s world.
In 2019, the Spanish jurist wrote a dissertation entitled: “The notion of Roman citizenship as a tool for reflection on the construction of Europe”.
However, the academic is the first to warn that must be careful when comparing what happened in the third century with what happens today.
“It is clear that granting Roman citizenship to all free people in the Roman Empire was a revolution, but the comparison with certain current situations is, perhaps, forced, because the situations were very different. ”
To begin with, he points out, the circumstances of the granting of citizenship in Caracalla have little to do with those experienced by the majority of undocumented immigrants who claim a nationality.
“Caracalla grants Roman citizenship to people they had conquered, they were not migrants. It is not the same ”, he observes.
However, he affirms that“ what is clear is that the teaching is that if the person living in a certain state is not considered anything, very probably being outside the system will end up providing something pernicious for that system. ”
Today the undocumented are more“ illegal ”than illegal migrants, he highlights, that is to say: people without rights.
“Some mechanism must be enabled so that these people can begin to integrate into the system.”
TO time you can receive notifications from BBC Mundo. Download the new version of our app and activate them so as not to miss our best content.
