Crime and Community in Ciceronian Rome

by Andrew M. Riggsby

In the late Roman Republic, acts of wrongdoing against individuals were prosecuted in private courts, while the iudicia publica (literally "public courts") tried cases that involved harm to the community as a whole. In this book, Andrew M. Riggsby thoroughly investigates the types of cases heard by the public courts to offer a provocative new understanding of what has been described as "crime" in the Roman Republic and to illuminate the inherently political nature of the Roman public courts. Through the lens of Cicero's forensic oratory, Riggsby examines the four major public ambitus (bribery of the electorate), de sicariis et veneficiis (murder), vis (riot), and repetundae (extortion by provincial administrators). He persuasively argues that each of these offenses involves a violation of the proper relations between the state and the people, as interpreted by orators and juries. He concludes that in the late Roman Republic the only crimes were political crimes.

Genres: Classics

267 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1999

Reviews

[Drianne · Rating 4 out of 5]

Everything you ever wanted to know about the iūdicia pūblica in the 1st c. Riggsby looks at each of the standing quaestiōnēs to determine exactly what the issues at hand were in cases of ambitus, the homicide court (dē sicāriīs, etc.), vīs, and repetundae by using as evidence primarily Cicero's surviving speeches on each. One of the central questions is to what extent these courts were 'political', which has often been asked using a modern framing that to consider 'political' issues is somehow illegitimate; but Riggsby argues that they both do consider political things but also that such was their intended function in Republican society. For example, the ambitus court is meant to consider not so much "did the candidate-defendant perform such-and-such an action during his campaign?" because, of course, everyone did those actions during campaigns, but "is the candidate 'one of us' such that performing that action was legitimate?" The politics come in determining if the candidate belongs to the 'right sort' of people (the bonī). The homicide court, by contrast, is interested in whether the defendant actually performed the murder at question, because murder itself is harmful to the Republic; Riggsby argues that the particular types of homicides covered by the iūdicium pūblicum (poisoning, murder-for-hire, and of course parricide) are particularly disruptive of the good of the people. In cases of vīs, the question can turn on 'was this violence contrā rem pūblicam or not', again a political question; Cicero however does not quite dare a justification defense in the prō Milōne, either in the version delivered in front of Pompey's ring of armed men or in the later published version, even. Finally, repetundae is a question that turns on protecting the Romans' good reputation (such as it was) among the provincials and thereby forestalling armed insurrections, which certainly were not good for the Republic as a whole.

If you do not wish to read the whole book, I think actually just the introduction and conclusion would suffice, since the conclusion provides a very good summary of the contents of the main chapters. It then examines the question of whether the Romans had any abstract notion of "crime" qua crime that the iūdicia pūblica were intended to curb or punish. Riggsby says no, that the function of these courts was instead to prevent injury to the Republic, but not to create an abstract notion of crime as we understand it. Among other things, some crimes (delicts), such as theft or some assaults were instead dealt with in the private courts, so 'crime' is not the organizing principle. As far as that goes, it is extremely convincing.

Overall, well-argued and well-written: I honestly wish it had not been so narrowly focused.