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Policing Rome*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 September 2012

Wilfried Nippel
Wilfried Nippel
Affiliation:
University of Bielefeld
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Extract

One fundamental question is already implied in the use of the word ‘policing’. A glance at the scholarly literature shows that ‘policing’ is used in the context of Roman history with respect to the aediles and the tresviri capitales, or as an equivalent of magisterial coercitio; or it is applied to the vigiles, the cohortes urbanae or the cohortes praetoriae of the Principate as well as to the respective praefecti; and, of course, to the various controlling bodies and agents of the Later Roman Empire. This is at least partly due to the fact that the fundamental nineteenth-century works reflect a usage of ‘policing’ which oscillates between the description of a function, i.e. securing public order, on the one hand and the designation of a specialized agency to fulfil this function on the other hand. This is due to the fact that the establishment of a specialized law-enforcement apparatus only took place during the (eighteenth and) nineteenth century. The institutionalization of a professional police force represents a fundamental change in societal as well as individual attitudes towards and demand for public order. It may easily be overlooked that the indisputable gain in security and public order had to be paid for with a considerable loss of flexibility in the interaction between rulers and ruled (which was now mediated by a bureaucratic organization), and with an intensification of control and discipline in the everyday life of most members and strata of society.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Roman Studies , Volume 74 , November 1984 , pp. 20 - 29
Copyright
Copyright © Wilfried Nippel 1984. Exclusive Licence to Publish: The Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies

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References

1 See e.g. Silver, A., ‘The demand for order in civil society’, in Bordua, D. J. (ed.), The Police (1967), 1–24Google Scholar; Philipps, D., ‘“A new engine of power and authority”: the institutionalization of law-enforcement in England, 1780–1830’, in Gatrell, V. A. C. et al. (eds.), Crime and the Law: a social history of Crime in Western Europe since 1500 (1980), 155–81Google Scholar.

2 See now Finley, M. I., Politics in the Ancient World (1983), 18 fCrossRefGoogle Scholar. and on the use of troops for riot control in early modern England Nippel, W., ‘Reading the Riot Act: aspects of law-enforcement in eighteenth-century England’, History and Anthropology 1 (1984)Google Scholar, forthcoming.

3 I should only like to indicate that the important hypothesis of the tresviri capitales exercising a summary criminal jurisdiction over the urban masses, which has been put forward by Kunkel, W., Untersuchungen zur Entwicklung des römischen Kriminalverfahrens in vorsullanischer Zeit (1962), 64 ff., 71 ffGoogle Scholar., is demonstrably biased by the assumption of the necessity of public prosecution of crimes, which reflects a peculiarly modern experience.

4 Mommsen, Th., Staatsrecht II 3, 499 ffGoogle Scholar.

5 cf. Lintott, A. W., Violence in Republican Rome (1968), 95Google Scholar.

6 Mommsen, St.-R. II3, 594 ff.; H. Strasburger, ‘Triumviri’, RE 7A (1939), 518 f.

7 See n. 3 above.

8 Mommsen, St.-R. II3, 512, cf. 597.

9 Lintott, Violence, 104, cf. Mommsen, St.-R. II3, 597.

10 The crucial point is whether their duties at night went beyond the task of fire-watching (Paulus, Dig. 1, 15, 1; cf. Val. Max. 8, 1, damn. 5) and whether their right to arrest runaway slaves (Asc. 37 C) and perhaps manifest criminals implied an obligation to search out suspects.

11 Liv. 32, 26, 17 (198 B.C.); Liv. 39, 14, 9 f.; 39, 16, 12; 39, 17, 5 (186 B.C. ); Sall., Cat. 30, 7; 32, 1 (63 B.C.).

12 Kunkel, Kriminalverfahren, 140; Martin, J., ‘Die Provokation in der klassischen und späten Republik’, Hermes 98 (1970), 82Google Scholar.

13 Mommsen, St.-R. I3, 136 ff.; Greenidge, A. H. J., The Legal Procedure of Cicero's Time (1901), 331 ffGoogle Scholar.

14 As a rule scourging was a punishment preliminary to decapitation: there are only few traces of its use as a punishment on its own; cf. the evidence collected in M. Fuhrmann, ‘Verbera’, RE, Suppl. 9 (1962), 1589 ff. and W. Waldstein, ‘Geißelung’, RAC 9 (1976), 481 f.

15 Val. Max. 2, 7, 6; Liv. 8, 7, 8 ff.; Dion. Hal. 2, 26, 6; Cic., Fin. 1, 23; Cic., Sull. 32; Gell. 9, 13, 20; Flor. 1, 14, 2; Oros. 3, 9, 2.

16 Q. Fabius Maximus versus M. Minucius Rufus during the Second Punic War: Liv. 22, 25, 13; 22, 27, 3; Plut., Fab. Max. 9–10; the story reported for the year 325 (Liv. 8, 32, 10; 8, 33, 21; Val. Max. 2, 7, 8; [Aur. Viet.], Vir. Ill. 31) may be a doublet of the historic case. See further the conflict at the consular elections of 215 B.C.: Liv. 24, 9, 1 f.

17 e.g. Liv. 42, 9, 4; Suet., Caes. 17, 2; Cic., Mil. 89; cf. Liv. 3, 55, 9; 5, 9, 7; 5, 11, 11.

18 e.g. Val. Max. 9, 7, 1; Vell. Pat. 2, 92, 3; App., B.C. 3, 31.

19 e.g. Varro ap. Gell. 14, 7, 10; Cic., Phil. 1, 12; Plut., Cic. 43, 7; Stroux, J., ‘Die Versäumnisbuße der Senatoren’, Philologus 93 (1938), 85–101CrossRefGoogle Scholar; O'Brien Moore, ‘Senatus’, RE, Suppl. 6 (1935), 702.

20 e.g. Ateius Capito ap. Gell. 4, 10, 8; Cic., De Or. 3, 4.

21 Kübler, ‘Lictor’, RE 13 (1926), 507–18; the following account owes much to B. Gladigow, ‘Die sakralen Funktionen der Liktoren’, ANRW 1, 2 (1972), 295–314.

22 This statement holds true even if the role of the servi publici was more important than assumed by the communis opinio, as Eder, W., Servitus Publica (1981), now arguesGoogle Scholar.

23 Liv. 2, 23, 15; 2, 27, 12; Plut., Publ. 7, 3; cf. Liv. 4, 50, 2.

24 Dion. Hal. 9, 39, 3 ff. and the evidence quoted in n. 25.

25 Liv. 2, 29, 2; 2, 55, 4; 3, 41, 3; 3, 49, 4.

26 Liv. 2, 55, 5; 8, 32, 10.

27 Liv. 2, 55, 3.

28 Dion. Hal. 7, 35, 5.

29 See the evidence for summovere, Kübler, RE 13, 512.

30 Liv. 22, 56, 1; 27, 50, 10; 27, 51, 5; Cic., Cluent. 147; Cic., Q.fr. 1, 1, 21; Plut., Aem. Paul. 32. 3.

31 Pace Lintott, Violence, 89.

32 e.g. Liv., per. 89; Suet., Caes. 20, 1; Caesar, B.C. 1, 6, 7; Dio 43, 48, 2; 43, 14, 3; Vell. Pat. 2, 58, 3, Sall., Cat. 36, 1; Asc. 33 C.

33 See esp. the episode of a father (himself a proconsul) being ordered by a lictor to pay reverence to his son, the consul (Liv. 24, 44, 10; Plut., Fab. Max. 24, 1 f.; Quadrigarius ap. Gell. 2, 2, 13), and the story of Q. Fabius Maximus demonstrating the absolute superiority of a dictator by commanding the consul to approach him without lictors in front of the army (Liv. 22, 11, 5 f.; Plut., Fab. Max. 4, 2).

34 Val. Max. 2, 7, 7; Dio 59, 20, 3.

35 Liv. 2, 55, 9; 3, 49, 4; Flor. 1, 22, 2; Zonaras 7, 17.

36 Cic., Brut. 56 f.

37 Cic., leg. 3, 11; 42.

38 Liv. 3, 11, 5; 25, 3, 19.

39 See Finley, Politics in the Ancient World, chs. 2 and 6 passim.

40 Compare, however, Liv. 2, 28, 5; 3, 41, 6; 5, 25, 2 f.; Plut., Aem. Paul. 31 and n. 75 below.

41 Liv. 2, 28, 1 ff.

42 Liv. 2, 3, 7 ff.; Dion. Hal. 5, 6 f.; Plut., Publ. 4ff.

43 Liv. 4, 13, 10.

44 Liv. 6, 20, 4.

45 Hoben, W., Terminologische Studien zu den Sklavenerhebungen der Römischen Republik (1978), 28 ffGoogle Scholar. and passim.

46 Zonaras 8, 11; Oros. 4, 7, 12.

47 Liv. 22, 33, 1 f.; Zonaras 9, 1.

48 Liv. 32, 26, 4 ff.; per. 32; Zonaras 9, 16.

49 Liv. 26, 27, 1 ff.

50 See n. 11 above.

51 e.g. Plut., Publ. 7, 3 ff.; Liv. 2, 5, 9; 4, 45, 2; 22, 33, 2; 26, 27, 6 ff.; 32, 26, 14; 39, 14, 6; 39, 19, 3 ff.; Sall., Cat. 30, 6.

52 See now D. Liebs, ‘Der Schutz der Privatsfäre (sic) in einer Sklavenhaltergesellschaft: Aussagen von Sklaven gegen ihre Herren nach Römischem Recht’, BIDR 83 (1980, i.e. 1982), 147–89; Schumacher, L., Servus Index: Sklavenverhör und Sklavenanzeige im republikanischen und kaiserzeitlichen Rom (1982)Google Scholar.

53 SC de Bacchanalibus, lines 10 ff.; Liv. 39, 18, 9.

54 Liv. 39, 15, 13; cf. Cic., leg. 2, 21.

55 J. North, ‘Religious toleration in Republican Rome’, PCPS 205 (1979), 85–103.

56 Liv. 39, 9, 1.

57 Liv. 39, 15, 11.

58 Liv. 39, 17, 5 f.; 39, 18, 5 f.

59 Liv. 39, 16, 13; Finley, , Politics, 21Google Scholar.

60 See Nippel, W., ‘Die plebs urbana und die Rolle der Gewalt in der späten römischen Republik’, in Mommsen, H. and Schulze, W. (eds.), Vom Elend der Handarbeit: Probleme historischer Unterschichtenforschung (1981), 70 ffGoogle Scholar.

61 cf. Nippel, W., Mischverfassungstheorie und Verfassungsrealität in Antike und früher Neuzeit (1980), 150 ffGoogle Scholar.

62 App., B.C. 1, 2; Cic., leg. 3, 11; 42 f.; fam. 1, 2, 4; Sest. 77; Phil, 1, 25.

63 Meier, C., Res Publica Amissa (1966), 157 ffGoogle Scholar.

64 Bleicken, J., Lex Publica (1975), 463 ffCrossRefGoogle Scholar.; Lintott, , Violence, 132 ffGoogle Scholar.

65 C. Meier, GGA 216 (1964), 44 ff.; Lintott, , Violence, 89 ffGoogle Scholar.

66 See, however, Cicero's tendency to designate privately recruited body-guards of dubious legality as a praesidium as well; Nowack, K. J., Der Einsatz privater Garden in der späten römischen Republik (Diss. München, 1974), 71 ff.Google Scholar; Bleicken, , Lex Publica, 486 ffGoogle Scholar.

67 cf. Asc. 75 f. C.

68 Dio 36, 39, 1; Asc. 60 C; Cic., Att. 1, 16, 5; Schol. Bob. p. 85 St.; Dio 37, 46, 2 f.; Plut., Cic. 29, 6 f.

69 See the standard account by Ungern-Sternberg, J. v., Untersuchungen zum spätrepublikanischen Notstandsrecht (1970)Google Scholar and Meier, C., ‘Der Ernstfall im alten Rom’, in Peisl, A. and Mohler, A. (eds.), Der Ernstfall (1979), 40–73Google Scholar.

70 Lintott, , Violence, 91Google Scholar; Ungern-Sternberg, , Notstandsrecht, 18, 63, 64 fGoogle Scholar.

71 esp. Cic., Tusc. 4, 51; Brut. 107; 212; Cat. 1, 3.

72 Plut., C. Gracch. 14, 4.

73 Cic., Rab. perd. 20.

74 Cic., Rab. perd. 21 ff.; 27; 31; Oros. 5, 17, 7.

75 At least in 133 B.C., the social superiority of senators was still a factor of some importance; Plut., Ti. Gracch. 19, 4; App., B.C. 1, 16; cf. Diod. 34/35, 33, 7.

76 Val. Max. 6, 3, IC; Cic,, dom. 102.

77 Oros. 5, 17, 10; Plut., C. Gracch. 17, 5; Dig. 24, 3, 66 pr.; Waldstein, W., ‘Zum Fall der “dos Licinniae”’, Index 3 (1972), 343–61Google Scholar.

78 Plut., C. Gracch. 17, 5; Flor. 3, 15, 6; Vell. Pat. 2, 6, 7.

79 Plut., C. Gracch. 17, 5.

80 Cic., Rab. perd. 24 f.; Val. Max. 8, 1, damn. 3; Quint., Inst. 6, 1, 49.

81 Mommsen, St.-R. III, 1189 f.; Waldstein, ‘Bona damnatorum’, RE, Suppl. 10 (1965), 100.

82 Dio 7, 26, 1; Vittinghoff, F., Der Staatsfeind in der römischen Kaiserzeit (Diss. Bonn, 1936), 13Google Scholar.

83 Val. Max. 4, 7, 1; Cic, am. 37; Plut., Ti. Gracch. 20, 3 f.

84 Oros. 5, 12, 10; Aug., Civ. Dei 3, 24.

85 Plut., C. Gracch. 16, 3; Oros. 5, 12, 7.

86 cf. Sall., Iug. 31, 7; 16, 2; Oros. 5, 12, 10.

87 The following part is a short summary of Nippel, art. cit. (above n. 60), 81 ff.; fuller documentation and a more detailed substantiation of my interpretation of Clodius' policy may be found there.

88 The success of John Wilkes with the London masses in the sixties and seventies of the eighteenth century is an illuminating parallel; see esp. Brewer, J., Party Ideology and Popular Politics at the Accession of George III (1976), ch. 9CrossRefGoogle Scholar and id., ‘The Wilkites and the law, 1763–74’, in Brewer, J. and Styles, J. (eds.), An Ungovernable People (1980), 128–71Google Scholar.

89 Vell. Pat. 2, 45, 1.

90 A. W. Lintott, ‘P. Clodius Pulcher—Felix Catilina?’, G&R 14 (1967), 164.

91 Cic., Cat. 4, 10; Sall., Cat. 52, 36; App., B.C. 2, 6.

92 Cic., dom. 100.

93 Dio 38, 17, 6.

94 Cic., dom. 47; 82.

95 Cic., dom. 44; 45; Sest. 65; Pis. 30.

96 Cic., dom. 51; 110; 116; leg. 2, 42; Dio 38, 17, 6; Plut., Cic. 33, 1.

97 Plut., C. Gracch. 17, 6; App., B.C. 1, 26; Aug., Civ. Dei 3, 25.

98 Cic., Att. 4, 2, 3, ‘hortatur ut se et Appium sequantur et suam Libertatem ut defendant’. Cf. Val. Max. 3, 2, 17 f.; Cic., Rab. perd. 20; Ungern-Sternberg, Notstandsrecht, 12, and the collection of evidence on the SCU formula by Plaumann, G., ‘Das sogenannte Senatus consultum ultimum, die Quasidiktatur der späteren römischen Republik’, Klio 13 (1913), 321 ffCrossRefGoogle Scholar.

99 Dio 38, 30, 2; Cic., Pis. 28; red. in sen. 7; red. quir. 14.

100 Cic., dom. 14; Att. 4, 1, 6.

101 Cic., Q. jr. 2, 3, 2; Plut., Pomp. 48, 7.

102 C. Nicolet, ‘Le temple des Nymphes et les distributions frumentaires à Rome à l'époque républicaine d'après des découvertes récentes’, CRAI 1976, 29–51.

103 Cic., dom. 25 f.

104 Asc. 34 C; Dio 40, 50, 1; Caes., B.G. 7, 1, 1; Cic, Mil. 67; 70.

105 Cicero had always boasted that he had mastered the crisis of 63 B.C. as consul togatus (see C. Nicolet, ‘“Consul togatus”’, REL 38 (1960), 695–716) and saved the Republic ‘sine tumultu, sine dilectu, sine armis, sine exercitu’ (Cic., Sull. 33).

106 See Nippel, W., ‘Aufruhr und “Polizei” in der späten römischen Republik und in der frühen Kaiserzeit’, Humanistische Bildung, Heft 6 (1983), 105 ffGoogle Scholar. for a provisional account.