Terms of service for late Roman foederati

[Robert Vermaat]

So citizenship came as part of the foedus? That is to say, the Visigoths who settled in the Balkans after the treaty in 382 were technically Roman citizens?

As Alanus already indicated, it depended on the respective deals. The were citizens in the sense that they were inside Roman law, but with exceptions, such as the fact that they were ruled by their own people at least as of the later 4th c.), and that they were also ruled under their own laws. This was not always the case, but the Goths were the first group to be settled with that foedus.

This system carries a spark of a failure of the Roman system under which barbarians who settled within the empire gradually integrated. And we can see (at least in part) why during the 5th century a situation could occur when a citizen (a Frank or a Gaul) could see himself not as a Roman (family first, then tribe or city, only then a Roman).

Having said that, it would be a mistake to see the federates as a ‘state-within-the-state’ per se, the situation would be much more blurred than that. Romans joined Alaric’s army, which attacked Rome but was technically a Roman army employed by Constantinople. Federates would marry Romans of course and happily integrate into Roman society, but Romans would on the other hand admire the barbarians and ape their fashion, while at the same time the Franks would try to become as Roman as possible. Yet a fine but distinct line would separate both societies until well after the end of Roman rule, as we can see in France, Spain and Austria for instance.

So no, the federates were not ‘normal citizens’, yet they were also no longer foreigners living inside the empire – a bit of a grey area, with unknown shades of grey.