Social Mobility in the Environment of the Roman Senatorial Aristocracy (The Age of Diocletian and Constantine I)

Abstract

This article discusses the social mobility among the Roman senatorial aristocracy in the late third and early fourth centuries. According to the accounts of narrative, legislative, and epigraphic sources and applying the methods of prosopography, the author analyzes the possibilities that the Roman senators had for their rise. The Roman aristocracy can be divided into several subgroups. Particularly closed and privileged was the group of patrician senators. The main channels of their social mobility were the conclusion of legal marriage, the birth within the legal marriage, the adoption of “new persons” by a representative of the patrician family, and, to a lesser extent, the procedure of the imperial adlectio. The modes of social mobility of other subgroups of the Roman senatorial aristocracy were more variable due to their activities in the imperial service. For senators who were not patriciates, the emperor acted as the main regulator of the influx of “new persons” and the rise of existing aristocrats. Under Emperors Diocletian and Constantine I, the promotion of aristocrats was situational, depending on state tasks. The only targeted reform to increase the total number of the senatorial aristocracy of Rome was carried out from 312 to 326; in result, the number of senators significantly increased for the first time in a long period and amounted to 2,000. In contrast to the interpretation established in historiography, in the late third and early fourth century, the senatorial aristocracy kept its privileged position in relation to other social groups. Having recovered from the consequences of the third-­century crisis, the Roman senators managed to rally; they represented a political force that the rulers had to reckon with. In result, the aristocrats got real opportunities to realize their political potential.