Multiple Citizenship in Roman Asia Minor. From the First to the Third Century CE.

• Applicant: Dr. Lucia Cecchet
• Subject Area: Ancient History
• Term: from 2019 to 2021
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 430584072

This project explores the phenomenon of multiple citizenship in the Greek cities of Asia Minor from the first to the third century CE (212 CE). Multiple citizenship refers to the practice of holding citizenship in several cities – a practice that spread in the Greek world since the Late Classical and Early Hellenistic period and became frequent in the Imperial period. Furthermore, under Roman rule, Greek citizens could obtain also Roman citizenship.This phenomenon leads us to reconsider some of the assumptions that have guided the study of ancient Greek citizenship in the past. In particular, there is the need to reconsider the idea that Greek citizenship entailed participation in the polis institutions. This approach relied mainly on Aristotle’s famous definition that a citizen is “the one who shares in the judicial function and in office” (Aristot. Pol. 3, 1275a). However, this is a narrow definition and it poses several problems when applied to the reality of the Greek cities. During the Hellenistic and Roman periods political rule became mainly a prerogative of the elites. The phenomenon of multiple citizenship shows, on the one hand, that political participation can hardly be regarded as the essence of Greek citizenship; on the other, multiple citizenship was not simply an honorific title. Grants of citizenship served as a means for enacting social and political dynamics, such as the formation of networks, the consolidation of political contacts among cities, the development of individual careers and phenomena of migration. Moreover, multiple citizenship had an impact on the perception, representation and discourse of civic identity. The aim of this project is to develop a new model for understanding the relation between civic rights, political participation and civic identity, based on the case of multiple citizenship in Roman Asia Minor. This will take into account both the political and legal aspects related to citizenship, as well as the discursive and performative construction of multi-civic identity. Combining evidence from inscriptions, literary texts (mainly orations of the Second Sophistic) and archaeology (statues and reliefs), this work will make a significant contribution to the ongoing debate about ancient Greek citizenship, which has so far focused mainly on archaic and classical Greece.

• DFG Programme: Research Fellowships
• International Connection: Switzerland
• Host: Dr. Andreas Victor Walser