Police

[longbow]

Hi all

Was there any kind of police force in rome?i imagine petty crime was high,pinching/pickpockets etc weres these crimes punished by the authorities?

thx.L

[pompeius magnus]

Rome had no police force, just protectors of the government officials through lictors. They really did not have a jail either. Trials were very common in rome and common punishment was exile, and if severe enough to be thrown from Tarpian rock, or simple execution- even though it was looked down upon and rarley did during republic, Cicero is one example of someone who had Catalinna's cronies executed.

[longbow]

Thanks m8

No jail,that is suprising.

L

[Primus Pilus]

Although in the Imperial period, Rome did enforce the law through the use of Vigiles and of course in severe matters, the Praetorians. But no, Rome did not have a 'police' force as we know it today.

 

As alien as it may seem to us today, its an indication of their powerful social culture that crime (minor anyway) was handled mostly by local families with certain magistrates or 'nobility' getting involved when necessary. Its just one little indication that ancient society even in cities the size of Rome was much more based on social, family, cultural tradition, etc., than we have today.

 

And jails did exist, especially in the later imperial period, but their existence was not the same intention as our modern prisons. But PM is right though, Roman 'prisons' were generally just considered holding pens for the condemned and are in no way reflective of how we punish our criminals.

[longbow]

Say you caught someone pinching from your shop,would you take him to the magistrate?or would they just beat him up?

If they never used prisons,how did they punish petty crimes?would they exile poor people?

Thx L

[Nephele]

Say you caught someone pinching from your shop,would you take him to the magistrate?or would they just beat him up?

If they never used prisons,how did they punish petty crimes?would they exile poor people?

Thx L

 

 

While doing a search on "vigiles" here, I came across this old posting. According to what I've read, petty criminals (by the time of Augustus) would be brought before the Praefectus Vigilum (Praefect of the Watch) for immediate trial.

 

As far as punishment for the conviction of a petty crime, I wondered whether the ancient Romans differentiated between the theft of say, a loaf of bread, and something more valuable?

 

The punishment for theft, as laid out in the Lex Duodecim Tabularum, doesn't really appear to vary according to any value set on the item stolen. It simply states that a thief caught by day would first be scourged, and then given up as a slave to the offended party. If the thief already happened to be a slave, he would be beaten with rods and then hurled from the Tarpeian Rock. If the thief happened to be a child, the decision of whether or not he would be scourged (and worse) would be left to the mercy of the Praetor.

 

Does anyone know whether Roman justice might have been tempered in accordance with the value of the item stolen? Or was thievery always viewed as a determinate crime demanding the same justice/punishment, regardless of the apparent degree of the theft?

 

-- Nephele

[caldrail]

I don't think the romans saw the degree of theft in the same way we do. How could they? Most things stolen from people were of low value anyway. The poor would most often steal from the poor. I think the circumstances of the case were more important than the value of the purloined items. Was the thief actually entitled to the item and refused it? Was there violence involved? A stabbing? Did the man steal from his master, or from his social betters? These were considerations more important than monetary value.

[Marcus Caelius]

It simply states that a thief caught by day...

 

By day? And if by night?

[Nephele]

It simply states that a thief caught by day...

 

By day? And if by night?

 

 

It was worse for the thief if he happened to be caught in the act by night. He could be immediately and legally killed by the person from whom he stole and the offended party would not be charged with homicide. Same rules appeared to apply to a thief caught in the act during the day, if the thief also happened to be armed while committing the theft.

 

-- Nephele

[Gaius Paulinus Maximus]

It simply states that a thief caught by day...

 

By day? And if by night?

 

Like PP says the nearest thing that Rome had to a police force was a body of men known as Vigiles, they numbered upto 7,500 men and had to to act as both policemen and firemen

 

The direction of the police was intrusted to three magistrates, called triumviri nocturni because their principal duty was to watch for the safety of the city at night. Valerius Maximus speaks of one of them, P. Villius, being fined quia vigilias neglegentius circumierat (for not having kept with diligence his nocturnal watch), and of other triumviri who were punished because they had not run with proper speed to extinguish a fire which had broken out in a jeweller's shop on the Sacra Via.

 

Here's an inscription found on a pedestal at the site of a Vigiles barracks house known as a Statio

 

"Severus and Caracalla emperors, to Junius Rufinus, prefect of the Vigiles, greeting. You are hereby authorized to punish with the rod or with the cat-o'-nine-tails (fustibus vel flagellis) the janitor or any of the inhabitants of a house, in which fire has broken out through negligence. In case the fire should be occasioned not by negligence but by crime, you must hand over the incendiaries to our friend Fabius (Septimianus) Clio, prefect of the city. Remember also that one of your duties is to discover runaway slaves and to return them to their masters."

[Augustus Caesar]

Rome was governed around the use of what is known as The Twelve Tables. I have had this on file for a while now and reproduce it below. I cannot remember the exact source but it is accurate enough to give you the idea of what they were about.... some of the categories inside each table have been omitted in this copy although that is how I got it originally....

 

Table I.

 

1. If anyone summons a man before the magistrate, he must go. If the man summoned does not go, let the one summoning him call the bystanders to witness and then take him by force.

 

2. If he shirks or runs away, let the summoner lay hands on him.

 

3. If illness or old age is the hindrance, let the summoner provide a team. He need not provide a covered carriage with a pallet unless he chooses.

 

4. Let the protector of a landholder be a landholder; for one of the proletariat, let anyone that cares, be protector.

 

6-9. When the litigants settle their case by compromise, let the magistrate announce it. If they do not compromise, let them state each his own side of the case, in the comitium of the forum before noon. Afterwards let them talk it out together, while both are present. After noon, in case either party has failed to appear, let the magistrate pronounce judgment in favor of the one who is present. If both are present the trial may last until sunset but no later.

 

Table II.

 

2. He whose witness has failed to appear may summon him by loud calls before his house every third day.

 

Table III.

 

1. One who has confessed a debt, or against whom judgment has been pronounced, shall have thirty days to pay it in. After that forcible seizure of his person is allowed. The creditor shall bring him before the magistrate. Unless he pays the amount of the judgment or some one in the presence of the magistrate interferes in his behalf as protector the creditor so shall take him home and fasten him in stocks or fetters. He shall fasten him with not less than fifteen pounds of weight or, if he choose, with more. If the prisoner choose, he may furnish his own food. If he does not, the creditor must give him a pound of meal daily; if he choose he may give him more.

 

2. On the third market day let them divide his body among them. If they cut more or less than each one's share it shall be no crime.

 

3. Against a foreigner the right in property shall be valid forever.

 

Table IV.

 

1. A dreadfully deformed child shall be quickly killed.

 

2. If a father sell his son three times, the son shall be free from his father.

 

3. As a man has provided in his will in regard to his money and the care of his property, so let it be binding. If he has no heir and dies intestate, let the nearest agnate have the inheritance. If there is no agnate, let the members of his gens have the inheritance.

 

4. If one is mad but has no guardian, the power over him and his money shall belong to his agnates and the members of his gens.

 

5. A child born after ten months since the father's death will not be admitted into a legal inheritance.

 

Table V.

 

1. Females should remain in guardianship even when they have attained their majority.

 

Table VI.

 

1. When one makes a bond and a conveyance of property, as he has made formal declaration so let it be binding.

 

3. A beam that is built into a house or a vineyard trellis one may not take from its place.

 

5. Usucapio of movable things requires one year's possession for its completion; but usucapio of an estate and buildings two years.

 

6. Any woman who does not wish to be subjected in this manner to the hand of her husband should be absent three nights in succession every year, and so interrupt the usucapio of each year.

 

Table VII.

 

1. Let them keep the road in order. If they have not paved it, a man may drive his team where he likes.

 

9. Should a tree on a neighbor's farm be bend crooked by the wind and lean over your farm, you may take legal action for removal of that tree.

 

10. A man might gather up fruit that was falling down onto another man's farm.

 

Table VIII.

 

2. If one has maimed a limb and does not compromise with the injured person, let there be retaliation. If one has broken a bone of a freeman with his hand or with a cudgel, let him pay a penalty of three hundred coins If he has broken the bone of a slave, let him have one hundred and fifty coins. If one is guilty of insult, the penalty shall be twenty-five coins.

 

3. If one is slain while committing theft by night, he is rightly slain.

 

4. If a patron shall have devised any deceit against his client, let him be accursed.

 

5. If one shall permit himself to be summoned as a witness, or has been a weigher, if he does not give his testimony, let him be noted as dishonest and incapable of acting again as witness.

 

10. Any person who destroys by burning any building or heap of corn deposited alongside a house shall be bound, scourged, and put to death by burning at the stake provided that he has committed the said misdeed with malice aforethought; but if he shall have committed it by accident, that is, by negligence, it is ordained that he repair the damage or, if he be too poor to be competent for such punishment, he shall receive a lighter punishment.

 

12. If the theft has been done by night, if the owner kills the thief, the thief shall be held to be lawfully killed.

 

13. It is unlawful for a thief to be killed by day....unless he defends himself with a weapon; even though he has come with a weapon, unless he shall use the weapon and fight back, you shall not kill him. And even if he resists, first call out so that someone may hear and come up.

 

23. A person who had been found guilty of giving false witness shall be hurled down from the Tarpeian Rock.

 

26. No person shall hold meetings by night in the city.

 

Table IX.

 

4. The penalty shall be capital for a judge or arbiter legally appointed who has been found guilty of receiving a bribe for giving a decision.

 

5. Treason: he who shall have roused up a public enemy or handed over a citizen to a public enemy must suffer capital punishment.

 

6. Putting to death of any man, whosoever he might be unconvicted is forbidden.

 

Table X.

 

1. None is to bury or burn a corpse in the city.

 

3. The women shall not tear their faces nor wail on account of the funeral.

 

5. If one obtains a crown himself, or if his chattel does so because of his honor and valor, if it is placed on his head, or the head of his parents, it shall be no crime.

 

Table XI.

 

1. Marriages should not take place between plebeians and patricians.

 

Table XII.

 

2. If a slave shall have committed theft or done damage with his master"s knowledge, the action for damages is in the slave's name.

 

5. Whatever the people had last ordained should be held as binding by law.

 

And so, that's it. When a crime was committed they would sometimes, obviously, not be able to fit it into one of the tables categories so they would loosely use one of them to punish the criminal.

[pbmax]

for a time, Rome DID have a police force called the cohortes urbanae. Their primary role was to police Rome from the roaming mobs and gangs that so often haunted its streets. Very occasionally they would take to the field of battle, but in the army they really had no more than an honorary role.

[Pantagathus]

5. A child born after ten months since the father's death will not be admitted into a legal inheritance.

What wonderfully simple and practical law!

[Mrld]

Of course Rome had a police force. The Urban Cohrots served as police and fireman.

[Primus Pilus]

Of course Rome had a police force. The Urban Cohrots served as police and fireman.

 

Not quite in the fashion we associate with modern police and fireman. The urbanae were primarily soldiers. Their duty included forcibly putting down the mob when necessary, but they weren't the same sort of 'police officers' that we are familiar with today.