Roman Law
Many of the modern world’s
legal systems are directly and strongly indebted to the Romans, primarily
through the Cōdex, Dīgesta and Institūtiōnēs
compiled on the order of the Byzantine emperor Justinian I in AD 529-533.
These texts, which run to well over a million words, are difficult to
read, being written in legal jargon, and synthesising legal practices
of almost 1,000 years. (The first body of Roman law to be promulgated
was the Ten/Twelve Tables of the mid-5th century BC.) Since Latin remained
the language of the judicial system throughout Europe till relatively
recently, some of the still current phrases and concepts listed below
were unknown to the Romans themselves. (Perhaps most notably, habeās
corpus, which encapsulates a principle of fundamental significance
to the protection of civil liberty; no one should be tried in absentiā.)
ad infīnītum for
ever
affidāvit sworn
deposition (literally, he has sworn)
bonā
fidē in good faith
corpus dēlictī material
evidence (body of the crime)
cui bonō? of benefit
to whom?
dē
factō in accordance with the fact
dē
iūre by right
ex lēge as a matter
of law
ex officiō by virtue
of one’s office
ex parte prejudiced
(from a part)
habeās corpus (I
command that) you should have the body (in court)
in camerā in private
(in a room)
in flagrante dēlictō in
the act (in the burning crime)
in propriā
persōnā without legal representation (in one’s own person)
ipsō
factō by the fact itself
modus operandī manner
of working
mūtātīs mūtandīs with
the necessary changes
obiter dictum incidental
(not binding) remark (a thing said in passing)
onus probandī burden
of proof
per sē in itself
persōna nōn grāta an
unwelcome person
prīmā
faciē on first appearance
prō
bonō publicō for the public good
prō
formā as a matter of form
prō
tempore temporarily
quid prō
quō exchange (what for what)
sine diē indefinitely
(without a day)
sine quā
nōn indispensable condition (without which not: sine quā
sc. rē/causā nōn)
status quō existing
condition (condition in which)
sub iūdice pending
(under the judge)
sub poenā under
penalty
suī
iūris independent (literally “of one’s own right”).
affidāvit is a verb
in Latin, a noun in English. Such changes in the part of speech are
particularly interesting. For verbs becoming nouns, cf. e.g.
caveat, exit,
fīat, flōruit (first used in the Greek lexicon of Liddell
[the father of Alice (in Wonderland)] & Scott), habitat,
imprimātur, interest, mementō, mementō
morī, nōn sequitur, placēbō, vetō; for
adverbs, aliās, alibī;
for phrases, nē
plūs ultrā ([let there] not [be] more [sailing] beyond, alleged
to have been inscribed on the Pillars of Hercules at the Straits of
Gibraltar), quid prō quō, sine quā
nōn, sub poenā.
The process is ubiquitous in
liturgy, parts of the mass etc. being referred to by their opening words,
regardless of what they may be: e.g.
avē
Maria, introit, Kyrie eleison, magnificat,
miserēre, nunc dīmittis, pater noster, requiem,
tē deum.
“Mass” itself is derived
from īte, missa est (contiō) “Go, (the assembly) has
been dismissed”. The splendid Spanish phrase en un santiamén,
meaning “quickly”, is derived from in nōmine patris et fīliī
et spīritūs sanctī, Āmen, often delivered perfunctorily and
at speed when used as a closing benediction.
“Bus” is an aphetic
abbreviation for omnibus “for everyone” (i.e. public transport);
omnibus appears first in France in 1825, and may have been inspired
by a tradesman named Omnès, who had the slogan Omnès Omnibus
on his vehicle. omnibī was initially used occasionally as the
plural.
in flagrante dēlictō:
flagrantī would be the more correct form, since the participle
is being used adjectivally, not in an ablative absolute. “red-handed”
is a term derived from Scottish law, in which it bore its literal sense,
referring to the blood of the victim.
mūtātīs mūtandīs:
an ablative absolute constructed with the neuter perfect participle
and gerundive of mūtō 1 “change”, literally “the things
which need to be changed having been changed”.
Despite the influence of their
legal system, we should not think of Roman society as being particularly
enlightened; for example, perhaps as late as the 1st century AD, a man
had the legal right to kill his wife and her lover if they were caught
in flagrante dēlictō, women had no voice in public affairs, slaves
were, of course, not suī iūris, and harsher penalties were
imposed on criminals from the lower classes than on those from the elite.
Citizenship conferred important
legal rights.
The case of St. Paul is particularly well known; see Acts of the
Apostles 22.25ff. Being a Roman citizen, he had the right to be
tried by Caesar in Rome – but he was crucified in the end. As a kindness
to the pirates who held him to ransom, Caesar had their throats cut
before they were crucified. We tend to associate crucifixion particularly
with the Romans, but it was well established in the East: in 519 BC,
Darius I of Persia crucified 3,000 political opponents in Babylon; Alexander
the Great was said to have crucified 2,000 people after the siege of
Tyre in 332; in 88 BC, Alexander Jannaeus, the Judaean king and
high priest, crucified 800 Pharisaic opponents.
Crucifixion is generally presumed
to have been adopted by Rome from the Carthaginians, being attested
first in the last years of the 3rd century BC, in the comedies of Plautus
(c. 254-184 BC). Plautus refers frequently to crucifixion as a familiar
type of punishment, especially for slaves; in the Miles Gloriosus
(The Boastful Soldier), a slave says “Don’t threaten
me. I know that the cross will be my grave. That is where all my ancestors
were laid to rest – my father, and my grandfather, and my great-grandfather,
and my great-great-grandfather” (373-4); in the Mostellaria
(The Haunted House), another slave says “I’ll give
a large sum of money to the first person who runs up to take my cross
- but only on condition that his feet and his arms are nailed on double-tight;
when that’s been done, he’s to come and ask me, and I’ll pay him
right away” (359-361; the humor in Roman Comedy was not always very
subtle). When the revolt of Spartacus was finally crushed (in 71/70
BC), more than 6,000 slaves were crucified along the Via Appia, the
road between Rome and Capua. Crucifixion was abolished in the early
4th century by Constantine the Great, the first emperor to profess Christianity.
Two four-horse chariots
were brought up and Mettius Fufetius, the king of Alba Longa, was tied
to them [by order of Tullius Hostilius, the third king of Rome,
as punishment for treachery]. Then the horses were driven in different
directions, with each chariot carrying off whatever parts of his mangled
body were attached to it. Everyone turned their eyes away from such
an awful sight. This was the first and last instance among the Romans
of a punishment with so little regard for humanity: one of the things
the Romans may boast about is that no other people has ever been satisfied
with milder punishments (Livy History of Rome 1.28).
In AD 61, the ex-consul Pedanius
Secundus, was murdered by one of his slaves, either because Pedanius
would not free him after a price had been agreed or because of sexual
rivalry. Ancient law ordained that, when a slave killed his owner, all
slaves living under the same roof should be executed. Even though so
many of them were woman and children whose innocence was obvious, the
Senate resolved to adhere to this practice, ignoring massive public
appeals for mercy: all 400 of Pedanius’ household slaves were executed
(Tacitus Annals 14.42-45). This law was presumably intended for
a time when the number of slaves in a household was much smaller. It
is unreasonable to doubt that many owners had as many slaves as Pedanius,
but it is rather puzzling that no private house has been discovered
which could possibly have accommodated anything like so many.