Overview
Roman citizenship was both privilege and political identity. Its expansion after the Social War changed the meaning of the Republic, but integration remained incomplete.
Importance
The Italian question revealed the contradiction between Rome’s dependence on allies and its reluctance to share political equality.
In the Livarva Trilogy
Citizenship appears in the Sulla and Caesar narratives as one of the unresolved pressures beneath civil conflict.
Ancient Sources
Cicero, speeches and correspondence; Appian, Civil Wars; Velleius Paterculus; Livy’s surviving summaries; inscriptions and legal evidence concerning Roman and Italian status.
Modern Scholarship
Studies of Roman citizenship, the Italian allies and the Social War, including Henrik Mouritsen, Italian Unification, and Edward Bispham, From Asculum to Actium.