Previous to the reign of Antoninus Pius, the privileges granted to the recipient of a diploma include citizenship for himself, the full legalization of any matrimonial union into which he has entered or shall enter in the future (_conubium_), and civic rights for his wife, children, and descendants. If he already possessed a family, the names of his wife and children follow his own on the diploma, and the frequency of this occurrence shows the extent to which the military authorities permitted the soldiers to form family ties while on active service.[65] The significance of this fact and its effect on the character of the army will be discussed in a later section.
At the beginning of the reign of Antoninus Pius, a change takes place in that part of the formula which concerns the grant of citizenship. In place of the words _ipsis liberis posterisque eorum civitatem dedit et conubium cum uxoribus_, &c., we read in all the later examples, _civitatem Romanam, qui eorum non haberent, dedit et conubium cum uxoribus_, &c.[66] The first inference to be drawn from this alteration is that there now existed a numerous group of auxiliary soldiers who possessed the _civitas_ before their discharge, and we are probably justified in the further inference that many actually possessed it when they were enrolled. It has been noted, for example, that on a document dating from the reign of Trajan, six recruits accepted for the Cohors III Ituraeorum all have the _tria nomina_.[67] In this change, then, we have a clear instance of the extent to which the franchise was now diffused throughout the Empire.
The omission of the phrase _liberis posterisque eorum_, on the other hand, suggests the opposite tendency. It cannot, of course, mean that children born after their father’s discharge would not be _cives_, for their status would be secured by the grant of _conubium_, but it seems clear that those born before it no longer acquired the citizenship with him. This is supported not only by the absence of all mention of children on the later diplomata,[68] but by the phraseology of an Egyptian document dealing with an ἐπίκρισις of the year 148 which distinguishes two classes of veterans, ~ἔνειοι~ μὲν ἐπιτυχόντες σὺν τέκνοις καὶ ἐγγόνοις, ~ἕτεροι~ μόνοι τῆς Ῥωμαίων ποτειτείας (_sic_) καὶ ἐπιγαμίας πρὸς γυναῖκας ἃς τότε εἶχον, ὅτε τούτοις ἡ πολιτεία ἐδόθη,[69] &c. Clearly we have here a translation of both types of formula, and the translator gave to the second the same meaning as that suggested above. Clearly, too, the change was considered an important one since the veterans discharged before and after it are thus divided into two groups. In view of the prevailing policy of the imperial government with respect to the extension of the _civitas_ this step has a curiously retrograde appearance, and it is difficult to see the motives which suggested it. Possibly it was merely desired to get rid of an anomalous situation by which the auxiliaries had previously occupied a more privileged position than the Household Troops.[70] In any case, even after this restriction, there can be little doubt that the grant of the _civitas_ with the improvement in civil status which it brought to the recipient, and the increased possibilities which it offered to his children, must have done much to popularize the service. We have seen that the idea of such a reward did not originate with the Empire, but it was probably not until the reorganization of the army by Augustus that it was regularly conferred and the years of service required to earn it definitely fixed.[71]