(Im)migrants in the Occupational World in the Roman Empire: Exclusion versus Integration

Numerous inscriptions illustrate the mobility of tradesmen and craftsmen throughout the Roman Empire, eliciting inquiries regarding their experiences, reception in host cities, and available support structures. Scholarly discourse addressing these inquiries has considerably intensified over the past few decades, revealing a prevailing inclination toward a favorable, and arguably, excessively optimistic, evaluation of the interactions between (im)migrants and local populations. A widely accepted viewpoint holds that occupational associations (collegia) admitted practitioners of specific trades irrespective of their geographic or ethnic backgrounds. Based on a close examination of select records of mobile and resident alien craftsmen and tradesmen —drawn from epigraphic, papyrological, literary, and legal sources —this presentation challenges the assumption that occupational associations universally facilitated inclusivity, emphasizing instead the complex dynamics of social closure, competition for resources, and the persistence of ethnic and occupational hierarchies in the Roman world.