History Memes

That was something of a tortured situation. Rome had pursued a somewhat confused policy during the later 2nd century BCE that resulted in Latin citizens having, and then being stripped of, Roman citizenship based purely on residence due to an outburst of unrest and xenophobia (Latins were, for a time, privileged to become Roman citizens simply by residence in Rome). While Roman citizenship could be (and often was) bestowed on individuals and small groups viewed as 'worthy', there wasn't the same level of institutional regularity that characterized later eras. Naturally, the Latin communities of Italy were less than enthused about this whole situation, and there was some outcry even at Rome to clarify the situation with an eye towards the enfranchisement of the Latin allies as a whole.

Unfortunately, the main push for this happened concurrently with a push for land reform, and while the Roman elite may have been willing to compromise on citizenship for Italians, land reform was something they couldn't tolerate! So those pushing for both ended up dead, and the Italian allies more disgruntled than ever. This resulted in the Social War, in which Rome won, militarily, but basically also conceded to the Italian allies' demands afterwards, because everyone could see how ridiculous the situation was.