SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome

by Mary Beard

For an increasingly large number of the inhabitants of the empire, becoming Roman meant becoming a Roman citizen. Throughout the provinces in the first two centuries CE, there were many ways in which this happened. Non-citizens who served in the Roman army were made citizens when they completed their terms of service; local officials in towns across the empire were more or less automatically granted Roman citizenship; whole communities or individuals (like Tiberius Claudius Togidubnus) were made citizens for special services they had rendered; and slaves of Roman citizens wherever they lived became Roman citizens if and when they were freed.