Abstract
The Roman concept of citizenship was novel and influential. Instead of an exclusive citizen body, Rome reached out to neighboring tribes, allies, and former enemies to form an inclusive citizenship which molded Rome's territory into a nation and thus created the modern concept of supra-ethnic citizenship of a state.
This process is reflected in the policy of Stoic cosmopolitanism, as encapsulated in the writings of Cicero and other Roman Stoics. The paper discusses the birth of cosmopolitanism and the Cynic school of philosophy.
The role of Zeno and the early Hellenistic Stoics is highlighted and the ideology of Stoic cosmopolitanism is expounded. To ground the historical argument, a survey of the development of Roman citizenship from c. 400 BC to Augustus is put forth.
Critical analysis of Cicero's expression of Stoic cosmopolitanism forms the heart of the paper, where duties, virtues, the universal commonwealth, oikeiosis, and the ius gentium are all discussed. Lastly, the expression of this cosmopolitan policy is highlighted against the development of Roman citizenship after Cicero until the Edict of Caracalla in AD 212.