Many historians have seen the edict of Caracalla (sometimes called the Antonine Constitution) as a turning point in the history of the empire, because it was a decision that weakened the imperial system to its core, diluting the appeal to non-Romans of joining the army and denuding citizenship of prestige. Perhaps this is so. But it is also true that an open attitude to assimilation within the empire had been one of Rome’s key historic advantages,* for it prioritized the values of the Roman system above everything else, and admitted freely and without hang-ups the possibility that people were
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