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Message: <blockquote data-quote="DrSkull" data-source="post: 4571130" data-attributes="member: 3718">There was a census of Roman Citizens every 5 years, where each citizen was counted, assigned to an electoral tribe (if he didn't have one), and had his property assessed for voting purposes.Lists of citizens were kept by the censors, and could be referred to.Roman citizenship was RELATIVELY easy to get (compared to citizenship in most ancient city-states) but was still a prize that some people thought worth serving in the army for 25 years to get.When a person was granted Roman citizenship through direct government action, such as army discharge, he was given a "diploma", a folded-over durable document, as proof.Paul claimed citizenship, because a provincial governor could not beat or execute a citizen and must needs send him to Rome to be dealt with.  So, they would have been prepared to check this sort of thing lest every single criminal who was brought before them would claim Roman citizen to avoid immediate punishment.If the citizen was obviously an Italian, they wouldn't need to check real hard.  If he claimed citizenship from some other source, he would either produce a diploma, or offer proof by reference to witnesses or the census.</blockquote>