decree which granted it to all free men without distinction.
What is remarkable here is, that no one can tell the date of this decree or the name of the prince who is- sued it. The honor is given, with some probability of truth, to Caracalla, — that is to say, to a prince who never had very elevated views ; and this is attributed to him as simply a fiscal measure. We meet in history with few more important decrees than this. It abolished the distinction which had existed since the Roman conquest between the dominant nation and the subject peoples ; it even caused to disappear a much older distinction, which religion and law had made be- tween cities. Still the historians of that time took no note of it, and all we know of it we glean from two vague passages of the jurisconsults and a short notice in Dion Cassius.[1] If this decree did not strike contempo-
- ↑ "Antoninus Pius jus Romanæ civitaiis omnibus subjectis donavit." Justinian, Novels, 78, ch. 5. In orbe Romano qui sunt, ex constitutione imperatoris Antonini, cives Romani effecti sunt." Ulpian, in Digest, I. tit. 5, 17. It is known, moreover, from Spartianus, that Caracalla was called Antoninus in official acts. Dion Cassius says that Caracalla gave all the inhabitauts of the empire the Roman franchise in order to make general the impost of tithes on enfranchisements and successions. The distinction between peregrini, Latins, and citizens did not entirely disappear; it is found in Ulpian and in the Code. Indeed, it appeared natural that enfranchised slaves should not immediately become Roman citizens, but should pass through all the old grades that separated servitude from citizenship. We also judge from certain indications that the distinction between the Italian lands and the provincial lands still continued for a long time. {Code, VII. 25; VII. 31; X. 39. Digest, L. tit. 1.) Thus the city of Tyre, in Phoenicia, even later than Caracalla, enjoyed as a privilege the jus Italicum. (Digest, IV. 15.) The continuance of this distinction is explained by the interest of the
