ANCIENT ROMAN LAW


As the empire developed, the emperor stood at the top of the administrative system. He served as military commander in chief, high priest, court of appeal, and source of law. All this power was intensely personal: Soldiers swore their oath to the emperor, not to a constitution or a flag. Personal ties of patronage, friendship, and marriage had always bound together Roman society, but during the empire the emperor became the universal patron.

Military loyalty, bureaucracy, and imperial succession were all viewed in personal terms. This concentration of power produced a court in which government officials and the imperial family competed with poets, astrologers, doctors, slaves, and actors for the emperor's attention and favor. The emperor's own slaves and freedmen dominated the clerical and financial posts and formed the core of imperial administration just as they did in the household administration of any Roman aristocrat. Deep ties of loyalty bound Roman freedmen and slaves to their patrons so that they faithfully served even the most monstrous emperors.

The emperors took over the Senate's political and legislative power, but they needed the help of senators who had experience in diplomacy, government, and military command. Since the emperor designated candidates for all government positions, senators had no other access to high office except through loyal service. A shrewd emperor could turn senatorial pride and loyalty to the advantage of the empire. By simply allowing senators to wear a broad purple stripe on their togas, for example, the emperor marked them as rulers of the Mediterranean and added to their prestige.

Only when emperors treated senators with contempt did the senators feel justified in conspiring against the emperor under the banner of freedom. Some ambitious senators dreamed of reaching supreme power and even of replacing the emperor. An occasional opportunity presented itself - Nero's death brought four senators to the imperial throne in the single year of AD 69.

However, most senators remained loyal to the emperor because the constant danger of displeasing suspicious emperors outweighed the remote chance of success. As the old noble families died out, the emperors found new blood among the local elite of Italy and the provinces. In the 2nd century AD more than half the senators were of provincial origin.

The emperor Augustus had first given the equestrian order increased responsibilities, and they continued to play an important role in the governance of the empire. Only a few of the equites actually worked for the emperor, some served as officers of Rome's auxiliary forces, and others as civil administrators.

Most members of this order remained in their home cities - there were 500 in the Spanish seaport of Cadiz alone - and formed the basis of a loyal elite that characterized the early empire. As the government expanded, the "equestrian career" began to resemble a modern civil service with ranks, promotions, and a salary scale. While retired centurions occasionally advanced into the equestrian order and equestrians into the Senate, social mobility remained limited.

The emperors tried to keep the equestrians loyal by permitting them signs of privilege similar to senators. Tens of thousands of equestrians across the empire marked their status by wearing togas with a narrow purple stripe and sitting in the front row at public games.

Senators and equestrians whom the emperor appointed as governors, generals, and prefects held substantial power in the provinces, although provincial administration was initially restricted to issues of taxation and law and order. The system grew increasingly complex, but it always remained rather small for such an expansive empire.

Twelfth-century China had an elite government official for every 15,000 subjects, as compared to Rome, which had one for every 400,000 people in the empire. Such figures are crude, but they show that Roman administration was less intrusive than its counterparts in China and many other modern states. The empire, with its limited administrative system, could not have functioned without local officials in the provinces or subject kings appointed by Rome, like Herod the Great in Judea.

Historians often focus on political leaders, but it is local grievances about high taxes, crime, or the price of bread that most often provoke people to revolt against a government. The Romans relied on civil laws to address a variety of these issues. Roman law in the republic was often based on custom. During the Roman Empire, however, the emperor became the final source of law.

People in the provinces were well aware that the emperor sat atop the chain of command as recorded in the New Testament to the Bible. In regard to taxation, for example, a passage in Luke 2:1 notes: "And it came to pass in those days, that a decree went out from Caesar Augustus, that the whole world should be enrolled to be taxed." However, popular anger over issues such as taxation was still directed toward the political officeholders who administered the laws.

Roman law was one of the most original products of the Roman mind. From the Law of the Twelve Tables, the first Roman code of law developed during the early republic, the Roman legal system was characterized by a formalism that lasted for more than 1,000 years. The basis for Roman law was the idea that the exact form, not the intention, of words or of actions produced legal consequences. To ignore intention may not seem fair from a modern perspective, but the Romans recognized that there are witnesses to actions and words, but not to intentions.

Roman civil law allowed great flexibility in adopting new ideas or extending legal principles in the complex environment of the empire. Without replacing older laws, the Romans developed alternative procedures that allowed greater fairness. For example, a Roman was entitled by law to make a will as he wished, but, if he did not leave his children at least 25 percent of his property, the magistrate would grant them an action to have the will declared invalid as an "irresponsible testament." Instead of simply changing the law to avoid confusion, the Romans preferred to humanize a rigid system by flexible adaptation.

Early Roman law derived from custom and statutes, but the emperor asserted his authority as the ultimate source of law. His edicts, judgments, administrative instructions, and responses to petitions were all collected with the comments of legal scholars. As one 3rd-century jurist said, "What pleases the emperor has the force of law." As the law and scholarly commentaries on it expanded, the need grew to codify and to regularize conflicting opinions. It was not until much later in the 6th century AD that the emperor Justinian I, who ruled over the Byzantine Empire in the east, began to publish a comprehensive code of laws, collectively known as the Corpus Juris Civilis, but more familiarly as the Justinian Code.


Republican Roman Government

The Romans never had a written constitution, but their form of their government, especially from the time of the passage of the lex Hortensia (287 B.C.), roughly parallels the modern American division of executive, legislative, and judical branches, although the senate doesn't neatly fit any of these categories. What follows is a fairly traditional, Mommsenian reconstruction, though at this level of detail most of the facts (if not the significance of, e.g., the patrician/plebian distinction) are not too controversial. One should be aware, however, of the difficulties surrounding the understanding of forms of government (as well as most other issues) during the first two centuries of the Republic.


EXECUTIVE BRANCH - ELECTED MAGISTRATES

Collegiality: With the exception of the dictatorship, all offices were collegial, that is, held by at least two men. All members of a college were of equal rank and could veto acts of other members; higher magistrates could veto acts of lower magistrates. The name of each office listed below is followed (in parentheses) by the number of office-holders; note that in several cases the number changes over time (normally increasing).

Annual tenure: With the exception of the dictatorship (6 months) and the censorship (18 months), the term of office was limited to one year. The rules for holding office for multiple or sucessive terms were a matter of considerable contention over time.

CONSULS (2): chief civil and military magistrates; invested with imperium (consular imperium was considered maius ("greater") than that of praetors); convened senate and curiate and centuriate assemblies.

PRAETORS (2-8): had imperium; main functions (1) military commands (governors) (2) administered civil law at Rome.

AEDILES (2): plebian (plebian only) and curule (plebian or patrician); in charge of religious festivals, public games, temples, upkeep of city, regulation of marketplaces, grain supply.

QUAESTORS (2-40): financial officers and administrative assistants (civil and military); in charge of state treasury at Rome; in field, served as quartermasters and seconds- in-command.

TRIBUNES (2-10): charged with protection of lives and property of plebians; their persons were inviolable (sacrosanct); had power of veto (Lat. "I forbid") over elections, laws, decrees of the senate, and the acts of all other magistrates (except dictator); convened tribal assembly and elicited plebiscites, which after 287 B.C. (lex Hortensia) had force of law.

CENSORS (2): elected every 5 years to conduct census, enroll new citizens, review roll of senate; controlled public morals and supervised leasing of public contracts; in protocol ranked below praetors and above aediles, but in practice, the pinnacle of a senatorial career (ex- consuls only) -- enormous prestige and influence (auctoritas).

DICTATOR (1): in times of military emergency appointed by consuls; dictator appointed a Master of the Horse to lead cavalry; tenure limited to 6 months or duration of crisis, whichever was shorter; not subject to veto.

SENATE

The story of the Roman Senate goes way back to a time before there was an accurate written history for Rome. The Senate was composed of leading citizens who were members of the original aristocratic families in the old Republic. The original purpose of this group was to advise the King. This worked well during the first two centuries of Rome’s existence when Rome was little more than a city-state built on seven hills and ruled by a king. The Senate originally had one hundred members chosen from amongst the Patrician class but the early kings soon increased its size to three hundred members. After the expulsion of the last Tarquin, Tarquinius Superbus, the Senate formed the main governing body of the Roman Republic. The two consuls, the chief ruling Magistrates of the Republic were chosen by the Senate, which served as the advisory body to the consuls.

Cornelius Sulla was the first to use an army to usurp the power of the Senate. He had many members of the Senate murdered who opposed his regime. He also increased the number of senators from 300 to 600. Many of these new senators appointed by Sulla were not Patricians, but instead members of the Equestrian Order who had supported Sulla’s takeover of the government.

The Roman Republic was a form of government that worked well with a city-state or even a group of powerful city-states in control of a region. With the annexation of Spain, Macedonia, Greece, the East, and North Africa in the Second Century B. C., Rome had come to control a vast empire and the Republic with its two consuls, senate, and small group of magistrates was not an adequate government for an empire of the size Rome had acquired.

Many of the early senators were great orators and we have their words preserved for us today by contemporary historians. Cato the Censor, Cicero, and others sometimes swayed the opinion of the entire population of Rome with their fine oratory and persuasive arguments.

The early years of the First Century B. C. ushered in a long period of civil war that began with the struggle between Sulla and Marius and reached a climax with Octavian’s defeat of Marcus Antonius at the Battle of Actium in 31 B. C. During that period, the Senate steadily lost power to the imperators, or generals of large Roman armies who controlled the government. In 27 B. C., the Senate voluntarily gave much of its power to Octavian, whom they had given the title of Augustus. While most of the early emperors tried to involve the Senate in the governing process and actively sought its counsel, most of the Senate’s real power was gone by the reign of Tiberius. Domitian was hostile to most of the Senate and Septimius Severus openly thumbed his nose at this once powerful Roman governing body.

During the later Roman Empire, the Senate had become more of an elite club for members of old aristocratic and equestrian families. It had no real governing power and its approval of acts of the emperor his laws was purely ceremonial. By this time, there were over one thousand senators. The Roman Senate survived even after the fall of the Roman Empire in the West when Rome had sunk to the status of a medium sized Italian city. Boethius, the Sixth Century advisor and close friend to Theodoric the Ostrogoth declared that the thing that made him happiest in his life was when his two sons were made Roman Senators.

FUNCTIONS OF THE ROMAN SENATE:

-originally an advisory board composed of the heads of patrician families, came to be an assembly of former magistrates (ex-consuls, -praetors, and -questors, though the last appear to have had relatively little influence); the most powerful organ of Republican government and the only body of state that could develop consistent long-term policy.

-enacted "decrees of the senate" (senatus consulta), which apparenly had not formal authority, but often in practice decided matters.

-took cognizance of virtually all public matters, but most important areas of competence were in foreign policy (including the conduct of war) and financial administration.

LEGISLATIVE BRANCH -- the three citizen assemblies (cf. Senate)

-all 3 assemblies included the entire electorate, but each had a different internal organization (and therefore differences in the weight of an individual citizen's vote).

-all 3 assemblies made up of voting units; the single vote of each voting unit determined by a majority of the voters in that unit; measures passed by a simple majority of the units.

-called comitia. specifically the comitia curiata, comitia centuriata, and comitia plebis tributa (also the concilium plebis or comitia populi tributa).

CURIATE ASSEMBLY: oldest (early Rome); units of organization: the 30 curiae (sing: curia) of the early city (10 for each of the early, "Romulan" tribes), based on clan and family associations; became obsolete as a legislative body but preserved functions of endowing senior magistrates with imperium and witnessing religious affairs. The head of each curia ages at least 50 and elected for life; assembly effectively controled by patricians, partially through clientela)

CENTURIATE ASSEMBLY: most important; units of organization: 193 centuries, based on wealth and age; originally military units with membership based on capability to furnish armed men in groups of 100 (convened outside pomerium); elected censors and magistrates with imperium (consuls and praetors); proper body for declaring war; passed some laws (leges, sing. lex); served as highest court of appeal in cases involving capital punishment. 118 centuries controlled by top 3 of 9 "classes" (minimum property qualifications for third class in first cent. B.C.-HS 75,000); assembly controlled by landed aristocracy.

TRIBAL ASSEMBLY: originally for election of tribunes and deliberation of plebeians; units of organization: the urban and 31 rural tribes, based on place of residence until 241 B.C., thereafter local significance largely lost; elected lower magistrates (tribunes, aediles, quaestors); since simpler to convene and register 35 tribes than 193 centuries, more frequently used to pass legislation (plebiscites). Voting in favor of 31 less densely populated rural tribes; presence in Rome require to cast ballot: assembly controlled by landed aristocracy (villa owners). Eventually became chief law-making body. Civil litigation: chief official-Praetor. The praetor did not try cases but presided only in preliminary stages; determined nature of suit and issued a "formula" precisely defining the legal point(s) at issue, then assigned case to be tried before a delegated judge (iudex) or board of arbiters (3-5 recuperatores for minor cases, one of the four panels of "The one hundred men" (centumviri) for causes célèbres (inheritances and financial affairs of the rich)). Judge or arbiters heard case, rendered judgment, and imposed fine.

Criminal prosecution: originally major crimes against the state tried before centuriate assembly, but by late Republic (after Sulla) most cases prosecuted before one of the quaestiones perpetuae ("standing jury courts"), each with a specific jurisdiction, e.g., treason (maiestas), electoral corruption (ambitus), extortion in the provinces (repetundae), embezzlement of public funds, murder and poisoning, forgery, violence (vis), etc. Juries were large (c. 50-75 members), composed of senators and (after the tribunate of C. Gracchus in 122) knights, and were empanelled from an annual list of eligible jurors (briefly restricted to the senate again by Sulla).

OTHER

First plebeian consul in 366 B.C., first plebeian dictator 356, first plebeian censor 351, first plebeian praetor 336.

The many priestly colleges (flamines, augures, pontifex maximus, etc.) were also state offices, held mostly by patricians.

Imperium is the power of magistrates to command armies and (within limits) to coerce citizens.





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