Criminal Law

[omoplata]

I was just reading the life of Cato the Younger by Plutarch

(http://classics.mit.edu/Plutarch/cato_you.html)

and noticed this sentence:

 

"Thus was the house almost wholly turned by Caesar, apprehending also the anger of the people; insomuch that even Silanus retracted, and said he did not mean to propose death, but imprisonment, for that was the utmost a Roman could suffer. "

 

This is in reference to the speech of Silanus in the Senate where he is first proposing the capital punishment for the Cataline conspirators, but then softens his stance as Caesar wins over him, as well as many other Senators.

 

The thing I am curious about is the severity of punishments doled out to Roman citizens, and in particular to patricians. I practically never heard of a patrician lawfully sentenced to death (though you hear of unlawful political murders). While my grasp of Roman history isn't very good and I might have missed many occurrences of such, it is safe to say, I guess, that a patrician being sentenced to death was a very rare event. I also have never heard of a patrician kept in prison for extended periods. It looks like the mos that ever happened to a noble Roman was exile, and even that was often in the form of voluntary exile.

 

Am I mistaken here or was such really the case? Are there many noblemen who were subjected to harsher sentences?

If not, were the "honor code" and fear of exile, which must have been a tremendous blow to a Roman I am sure, the primary forces keeping the upper ranks of society in check?

 

Thanks

[Kosmo]

Imprisonment was not a roman punishment but a transitional stage before another.

During the Republic a roman citizen could not be punished by death. Exile was the greatest punishment. Cicero succeeded in convicting 5 Catiline conspirators to death against opposition by Caesar and it was generally regarded in an unlawful manner. The most important of those conspirators was Publius Cornelius Lentulus Sura, step father of Marcus Antonius who in-turn had Cicero executed.

[omoplata]

During the Republic a roman citizen could not be punished by death.

 

So no matter what the crime, a citizen -whether patrician or plebian- could not be punished by death? What was the worst possible punishment allowed by law? Just exile?

Very very interesting, thanks for clarifying

[Centurion-Macro]

Note that the law wasn't everything though. I think forced suicide was a popular method used in Rome throughout its history for 'dangerous' nobles.

[omoplata]

Note that the law wasn't everything though. I think forced suicide was a popular method used in Rome throughout its history for 'dangerous' nobles.

 

Good point

But in the absence of an emperor, who had the gravitas to order a forced suicide? Neither Consuls nor the Senate or Censors could really order or force one during the republican era, I would think. What do you say?

 

EDIT:

I just looked up the 12 Tables (http://www.csun.edu/~hcfll004/12tables.html) and it says this on the last line:

"There are eight kinds of punishment: fine, fetters, flogging, retaliation in kind, civil disgrace, banishment, slavery, death."

 

Though strangely, this line is prefaced with a question mark. Furthermore, it doesn't specify who these laws are applicable to. So Roman citizens may still be exempt from the death penalty....?

Edited December 4, 2011 by omoplata