Dediticii

In this inscription from AD 232, Walldürn, Roman Germany, Alexandrian dediticii join two scouts (exploratores) in a dedication to Dea Fortuna after the restoration of the decrepit baths at their military outpost.[1]

In ancient Rome, the dediticii or peregrini dediticii (Classical Latin: [deːdɪˈtiːkiiː]) were a class of free provincials who were neither slaves nor citizens holding either full Roman citizenship as cives or Latin rights as Latini.[2]

A conquered people who were dediticii did not individually lose their freedom, but the political existence of their community was dissolved as the result of a deditio, an unconditional surrender.[3] In effect, their polity or civitas ceased to exist. Their territory became the property of Rome, public land on which they then lived as tenants.[4] Sometimes, this loss was a temporary measure, almost a trial period to see whether the peace held, while the people were being incorporated into Roman governance;[5] territorial rights for the people or property rights for individuals might then be restored by a decree of the senate (senatus consultum) once relations were perceived as having stabilized.[6]

In the Imperial era, there were three categories of people who held dediticius status defined as freedom without rights: the peregrini dediticii ("foreigners under treaty") who had surrendered; peregrini who had immigrated into the empire;[7] and former slaves who were designated libertini qui dediticiorum numero sunt, freedmen who were counted permanently as dediticii because of a penal status that denied them the rights usually ensuing from manumission.[8]

  1. ^ Pat Southern, "The Numeri of the Roman Imperial Army," Britannia 20 (1989), p. 139, no. 16; CIL 13.6592 = AE 1983, 729); further discussion by Iiro Kajanto, "Epigraphical Evidence of the Cult of Fortuna in Germania Romana," Latomus 47:3 (1988), pp. 570–572, 578.
  2. ^ Adolph Berger, s.v. "Dediticii", Encyclopedic Dictionary of Roman Law (American Philosophical Society, 1953), p. 427.
  3. ^ Christian Baldus, "Vestigia pacis. The Roman Peace Treaty: Structure or Event?" in Peace Treaties and International Law in European History from the Late Middle Ages to World War One (Cambridge University Press, 2004), p. 122.
  4. ^ Herbert W. Benario, "The Dediticii of the Constitutio Antoniniana," Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological Association 85 (1954), p. 192.
  5. ^ Benario, "The Dediticii of the Constitutio Antoniniana," p. 194.
  6. ^ L. De Ligt, "Provincial Dediticii in the Epigraphic Lex Agraria of 111 BC?" Classical Quarterly 58:1 (2008), pp. 359–360.
  7. ^ Mary T. Boatwright, "Acceptance and Approval: Romans' Non-Roman Population Transfers, 180 b.c.e.–ca 70 c.e." Phoenix 69:1/2 (2015), pp. 124 et passim.
  8. ^ Herbert W. Benario, "The Dediticii of the Constitutio Antoniniana," pp. 188–189, 191.