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Why Rome Has the Better System of Citizenship

One land is strict with their citizenship while the other is free and loose but still in

control. Rome and Athens have been said to have totally different systems of citizenship. Rome

is more loose on who can be a citizen and could lead to unsuspecting danger from its own

people. Instead, Athens is a stricter on who can be a citizen, but Rome is still the owner of

having a better system of citizenship as it gives more organization of a larger group of people, it

gives women and children the right to be a citizen with rights, and it allowed different groups of

people to be able to run for an office.

When Rome was in its prime, it had a population of around 50 to 90 million

people. It is a huge number compared to the average population of Athens which is around

140,000. That means that with technology back then, it had to be extremely hard for Rome to be

able to track every single person at the time. This means Rome had to be a little laxer on who can

be a citizen. As a result, it gave many more people the chance to be a roman citizen. Athens on

the other hand had a smaller population, meaning it can monitor its own people more closely.

Even then, even Athenians who were born in the city-state could not be a woman or if one is a

male child, to wait until he is an adult to gain citizenship. This resulted in only around 20% of

the population become a citizen.

Another reason why Rome is more successful in citizenship was it allowed

women and children to become citizens. Children didnt have any real benefits other than being

able to officially call themselves a citizen. Women though did have a significant amount more

rights than women who lived at Athens. Women in Athens could virtually did nothing to involve

in Athenian actions like running for office or being able to own land, on the other hand, women
in Rome could. Roman women couldnt run for office or vote, but they were able to own land,

which is a way for women to be able to classify themselves to other romans. Not only is it

logically obvious that this is one way Rome had a better citizenship system that of Athens, but

that it is morally good. This is one of the first times in history where women were given some

rights like some men. Although this would not be good enough by todays standards, Rome was

the best at around that time.

One of the ways on how Rome had a citizenship system is that it allowed almost

anyone the ability to be a representative of their home land. An example is that if Rome

conquered a nearby village, then instead of having a Roman represent them and many nearby

villages, they will allow a representative chosen by that village to represent that village to the

roman government. This also convinces the village to not be extremely mad (but still some

anger) at the romans. It will make some of them think twice about wanting to revolt and break

free from the romans. This didnt work every time, as they eventually fail into nothing because

of this. This and a mix of other reasons is what made Rome fall, but letting some conquered

lands from Rome become a citizen is a double sided gun for them (in which case, it shot towards

Rome). Athens did not allow people from conquered lands to become citizens. Reasons to

include can be that Athens just did not believe other non-Athenian male born people should ever

become citizens, which is simple to conclude. Another possible reason is that Athens did not

have a big enough army to enforce lands if they acquire lands such as Rome did. This allowed

Rome to seem to be the nicer group of people who will most likely accept anyone conquered by

them to become citizens, deeming themselves having a better system of citizenship.


All and all, Rome has the better system of citizenship as they accepted many

groups of people with reasons as it didnt make them seem incompetent of handling huge

populations of people. Rome has more-lax eligibility of who can be a citizen while Athens turns

a hand towards those who were even born in their home-state. There are understandable reasons

on why Athens does this but it doesnt change the fact that Rome has a better standard of

citizenship than that of Athens.

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