Murder Was Not a Crime: Homicide and Power in the Roman Republic

Notes

Notes iNtroduCtioN 1. Henry Campbell Black, Black’s Law Dictionary, 6th ed. (St. Paul: West Publishing , 1990) s.v. murder, crime. 2. The definitions of both of these powers are more complex than this, but see Chapters Two and Three for further discussions. 3. Killing itself, though, is not necessarily the final act because there are a variety of things that can happen to the body after death. See, e.g., Katarina Mustakallio, Death and Disgrace: Capital Penalties with post mortem Sanctions in Early Roman Historiography . Annales Academiae Scientarum Fennicae Dissertationes Humanarum Litterarum 72 (Helsinki: Suomalainen Tiedeakatemia, 1994); Donald G. Kyle, Spectacles of Death in Ancient Rome (New York: Routledge, 1998); Claire Lovisi, Contribution à l’étude de la peine de mort sous la république romaine (509–149 av. J.-C.) (Paris: de Boccard, 1999) 98 n. 265. 4. For the definition of public law, see below on terminology. 5. For further discussion of the language of homicide in the courts, see Chapters Four and Seven. 6. The lex Cornelia de sicariis et veneficiis included “qui hominem occiderit” (“whoever will have killed a person”; D. 48.8.1), but that was not the main force of the law, as we shall see below. 7. Argument has been made that the use of the word was not infrequent in the republic. Fabio Lanfranchi (Il diritto nei retori romani contributo alla storia dello sviluppo del diritto romano [Milan: Giuffrè, 1938] 469) argues that homicidium and homicida were more common in the late republic than Mommsen thought because of the frequency of their appearance in Quintilian and Seneca. For further sources and discussion of the term, see Antonius Stankiewicz, De Homicidio in Iure Poenali romano (Rome: Officium libri catholici, 1981) 1–14. 8. “Im klassischen Latein fehlt es für den Mord an einem einfachen Ausdruck; das jung und nicht glücklich gebildete Wort homicidium, der Menschenmord, ist erst spät dafür eingetreten. Aushülfsweise werden in der klassischen Rechtsprache zur Bezeichnung des Mörders die Benennung des Banditen (sicarius) und die des Giftsmischers 1 (veneficus) combinirt” (“In Classical Latin there is not one simple expression for the word murder; the young and not fully developed word homicidium, the murder of a person, is first employed late. Temporarily in Classical legal language the terms Bandit (sicarius) and poisoner (veneficus) were combined to mean murderer”): Mommsen, Strafr., 613. 9. See, esp., J. D. Cloud, “The Primary Purpose of the lex Cornelia de sicariis,” ZSS 86 (1969), and the discussion below in Chapter Seven. 10. The Latin word crimen, whence the English word crime derives, did not mean crime during the republic. It meant “charge” or “accusation.” 11. Similarly, “Diritto penale: è quello comprendente i diversi mezzi e la forma coi quali lo stato adempe all’altissimo ed essenziale compito di mantenere integro l’ordine giuridico e ripistinarlo quando sia turbata da infrazioni più o meno gravi, che pongano in pericolo la esistenza e la sicurezza della società.” (“Diritto penale is that which includes the diverse ways and the form with which the state fulfills the highest and essential task of maintaining the juridical order whole and restoring it whenever it is troubled by more or less serious infractions, which put in danger the existence and the security of society”; Angelo Menghi, Dizionario di terminologia giuridica, 2nd ed. [Florence: Barbera, 1950] 94). “Das Strafrecht ist ein Teil des öffentlichen Rechts.” (“Penal law is a part of public law”; Gerhard Köbler, JuristischesWörterbuch für Studium und Ausbildung [Munich: Franz Vahlen, 1995], s.v. Strafrecht).The German and Italian terms are not as inaccurate as the English because they mean penal law and thus relate more closely to the Roman public law, because offenses tried in the public courts are (for the most part, though not always) subject to punishment. 12. This is the so-called Classical period of Roman law when many jurists were hard at work codifying and explaining the Roman legal system. 13. Barry Nicholas, Introduction to Roman Law (Oxford: Clarendon, 1962) 4; cf. D. 1.1.2: Publicum ius est quod ad statum rei Romanae spectat, privatum quod ad singulorum utilitatem: sunt enim quaedam publice utilia, quaedam privatim. (“Public law is that which looks to the state of Roman affairs, private law is that which is useful to the individual: for indeed certain things are of public utilityand certain are of private.”) But the evidence from the beginning of Rome to the end of its republic demonstrates that matters between and...