Rubicon: The Triumph and Tragedy of the Roman Republic

by Tom Holland

Instead, for the new man, the likeliest career path to triumph in the Cursus, to the ultimate glory of the consulship and to seeing himself and his descendants join the ranks of the elite, was the law. In Rome this was a topic of consuming interest. Citizens knew that their legal system was what defined them and guaranteed their rights. Understandably, they were intensely proud of it. Law was the only intellectual activity that they felt entitled them to sneer at the Greeks. It gratified the Romans no end to point out how ‘incredibly muddled – almost verging on the ridiculous – other legal systems are compared to our own!’16 In childhood, boys would train their minds for the practice of law with the same single-minded intensity they brought to the training of their bodies for warfare. In adulthood, legal practice was the one civilian profession that a senator regarded as worthy of his dignity. This was because law was not something distinct from political life but an often lethal extension of it. There was no state-run prosecution service. Instead, all cases had to be brought privately, making it a simple matter for feuds to find a vent in the courts. The prosecution of a rival might well prove a knockout blow. Officially the penalty for a defendant found guilty of a serious crime was death. In practice, because the Republic had no police force or prison system, a condemned man would be permitted to slip away into exile, and even live in luxury, if he had succeeded in squi...