The Laws of the Roman People by Callie Williamson

Author:Callie Williamson
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780472025428
Publisher: The University of Michigan Press

LEVELS OF MIGRATION

A high level of movement in and out of Rome was the order of the day. The Roman experience of such movement in the period of greatest territorial expansion, from the end of the Second Punic War to the conquest of Gaul, roughly 200 to 50, was unique in contrast both to Rome’s own past experience and to that of other cities precisely because of the high rate of growth attested in the city population and the complexity and strength of the networks connecting it to the countryside. From an estimated two hundred thousand in 200, the city population had swollen to one million by 50, it is believed, due primarily to in-migration.51 In this section I propose to examine the dynamics of migration throughout this period and its implications for the persistence and increasing frequency of public lawmaking. The migration of citizens, Latins, Italians, and foreigners to the city tended to be of short duration, mirroring the movement of citizens to Rome described previously. Although the number of city residents was increasing, the population of Rome remained fundamentally unstable as people migrated, often on a short-term basis, joining those who simply visited the city, and then left again. In brief, the rough modern estimate of the population in Rome in 50, approximately one million people, obscures a far more important demographic phenomenon, the movement of millions of people who came to the city and left again in the years between 200 and 50. Movement underlay the Roman system.

While the personal motivations spurring such movement are irretrievable, we do know that migration in ancient Italy, like migration generally, followed established patterns and involved selected groups. Some of these select groups of migrants to Rome and the circumstances of their migration between 200 and 50 are distinguishable. Foreign slaves form one such group, specifically skilled slaves whose provenance, between 200 and 146, was mostly the Greek East and whose import from abroad may be viewed under the rubric of in-migration although their entry into Rome was forced. Working as craftsmen, teachers, performers, and other professionals before they were freed, these individuals apparently stayed in Rome to continue working as before. Since a manumission tax of 5 percent that was instituted by public law as early as 304, before the great influx of slaves, and payable by the slave, turned manumission into a lucrative prospect for the state and slaveholders, such slaves must have been quite often freed. A public law of this kind, setting up the conditions for the continued prosperity of Rome, again demonstrates the Roman talent for taking optimum advantage of a new situation. In this case, the slaves contributed skills the Romans wanted. Yet the numbers of skilled slaves and hence ex-slaves in Rome itself were doubtless few in relation to the total urban population.52 Indeed, the impassioned opposition by many Romans to the registration of ex-slaves in rural tribes suggests that many had property outside the city or that they were registered in their previous owner’s tribe.

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