Talk:Constitutio Antoniniana

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However, it had the unintended effect of allowing provincials the hope of becoming emperor, and of starting uprisings with that hope in mind (the first to do so being Maximinus Thrax only 23 years after this edict). This would play a major factor in the Crisis of the Third Century and the eventual fall of the Roman Empire.

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I understand that there are plenty of Pat Buchanan fans out there, but calling Constitutio Antoniana "a major factor" in the eventual downfall of the Western Roman Empire is an unacceptable POV statement - for the counterargument (that the extension of Roman citizenship rights to the entire freeborn population of the Empire was the major reason it even survived the crises of the 3d century) looks, to me, at least as reasonable, if not more so, than the idea that unruly barbarian soldiers were waiting with baited breath to receive their citizenship rights before they decided to rebel. The majority of usurpers, rebels and new emperors continued to be Romans after the passing of Constitutio Antoniana, anyway.

Leave Buchanan's theories out of historical articles: the Roman armies by themselves were unruly, undisciplined and violent enough by the beginning of the 3d century to make any bemoaning over the "barbarization" of Rome a farce.