Rome had no police force, at least not in the way that we tend to think of it today. This lack was not unusual or unique to Rome, since the police force in its modern sense did not develop until the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The job of the modern police is to prevent crime, investigate crimes that have been committed, and apprehend criminals. Up until recently, none of these activities was perceived to be the particular responsibility or duty of the state. Rome did possess a legal system and, by the end of Roman history, an extraordinarily sophisticated and complex law code, but this system was only applied to cases that were, on the whole, brought before magistrates by private citizens.
During the republic, it was strictly forbidden to have military forces within the pomeriuni, the sacred boundary of the city. Dealing with day-today crime was very much a do-it-yourself system in which individuals had to protect themselves and their property. If Romans became victims of a crime, they or their friends and family had to capture the criminal and drag him before a magistrate. While the state did not take a very active role in regulating criminal activity among individuals, it did intervene in cases in which a crime was perceived to have threatened or been committed against the state. Thus, many of the famous trials during the republic had to do with accusations of treason or disputes among public officials. The only crime among individuals that the magistrates took an active role in investigating was the special crime of parricide.
The earliest law code, the Twelve Tables, emphasized this do-it-yourself nature of Roman justice. If a thief broke into your house at night or was armed, you were allowed to kill the thief, although if the break-in occurred during the day and the thief was unarmed, you were supposed to summon your neighbors and apprehend him. In practice, the slaves and clients of powerful men acted as bodyguards to protect them and their property.
The streets of the city at night were considered to be particularly dangerous due to muggers, and wealthy men returning home from dinner parties took care to be accompanied by a retinue of slaves with torches and often weapons.
Spontaneous mob violence seems to have been permitted or at least ignored and was seen as a way of settling particularly egregious disputes. There are multiple instances of people being torn to pieces by an angry mob if they were generally thought to be guilty of some offensive crime. In 82 BC, the governor of the province of Africa was burned alive in his home by an angry mob of citizens, but no retaliatory action was taken by the authorities because it was generally agreed that he had deserved it.
During the empire, the situation in the city changed a bit due to the establishment of several military and paramilitary groups stationed within the city limits. These included the Praetorian Guard, whose primary function was to protect the emperor; the Urban Cohorts; and the vig-iles, who fought fires. While the presence of all of these groups may have had some deterrent effect on crimes, and while they were clearly used to keep order and suppress riots at public events such as games, none of them was specifically charged with the prevention, detection, or investigation of ordinary crime.
There were a variety of magistrates whose duties involved supervising judicial-type actions. Praetors had general jurisdiction to conduct trials and pass judgment when criminals were brought before them. The urban aediles may have had some responsibilities in connection with their general oversight of urban affairs. During the empire, an official known as the urban prefect could conduct trials. Finally, there was a board of three junior magistrates known as the triumviri capitales who, assisted by a staff of slaves, carried out the torture and execution of convicted criminals.
One of the praetors was responsible for sitting in the Roman Forum and dealing with legal cases that were brought before him. A few crimes, such as treason, required trials before one of the assemblies, but for most day-to-day crimes, he had power to settle the case. Praetors were supposed to follow legal precedents in making judgments, but the system was not formal, and there was room for arbitrariness.
Law cases were judged out in the open, often in the forum itself, so that anyone could gather and watch. Trials therefore often took on the nature of public spectacles, particularly in the Late Republic, when a number of high-profile Roman citizens were involved in a series of sensational public trials. At this time, law cases became almost a form of entertainment. People came and watched the speakers perform. Rome had no professional lawyers, and men like Cicero who were gifted public speakers could make their political careers by presenting celebrity cases. Because of the public nature of trials, speakers like Cicero played as much to the audience as to the jury. Audiences were very vocal and would shout out comments, abuse, and praise.
The punishments inflicted on criminals varied according to their status. Upper-class individuals were penalized by a loss of status, exile, or, in severe cases, by execution, although this would usually have been carried out in private. Lower-class people were more frequently subject to beatings and the humiliation of public execution. Slaves could suffer a variety of cruel tortures and forms of execution.
Rome did not have a prison system. The only jail in Rome was a single cell that was used to hold people until they could be executed. The standard punishments were fines, flogging, decapitation, crucifixion (for incest, treason, and for slaves who had revolted), or burning (for treachery and arson). Citizens could also be stripped of their status as citizens and become slaves or gladiators. Another punishment was to be sent to the mines, which entailed incredibly hard and dangerous labor; this really amounted to a delayed death sentence. A final option was exile. The Romans termed this to be "interdicted from fire and water.” It was a capital offense to help or harbor an exile, and if an exile returned, he could be killed with impunity.
The Romans had a couple of special punishments for crimes they found especially offensive. Given the reverence, status, and power accorded to fathers, it is not surprising that the Romans were particularly horrified by children who killed their fathers. The punishment for this crime was to be sewn up in a sack together with a live rooster, dog, snake, and monkey; the sack was then thrown into the ocean.
If a defendant owed money as punishment for a crime and was unable to pay the debt, his body became the property of the wronged person—in other words, he became the slave of that person. If you killed someone else's slave or animal, you had to pay the highest value that the property had possessed in the past year. If you burned, broke, or smashed anything, you had to pay its highest value in the last month. For theft, the wronged party received double the value of the object stolen. If the theft was accompanied by violence, the victim received four times the value. For personal injuries such as one person hitting another, an estimate was made of the damage and a money award was given to the injured person. This type of crime had a one-year statute of limitations, meaning that if you did not bring your suit within one year, you could no longer do so. There were four cases in which the injured party got extra money because of the outrageousness of the crime: First, if the injured person was of high rank, such as a senator; second, if the act was unusually brutal, such as clubbing with a heavy stick; third, if the crime took place in a very public place, such as the theater; and fourth, if the injured body part was particularly sensitive, such as an eye. One of the most frequent sources of lawsuits was people being struck by objects thrown out of windows, and in such cases, the punishment was a fine amounting to two times the loss or damage incurred.
There were even specific laws concerning losses caused by animals. If a domesticated animal caused harm or injury, the owner was liable. However, if a wild animal escaped and caused harm or damage, the owner was not punished as long as he had not shown negligence, since the assumption was that the animal was just being true to its wild nature. There was a special provision, however, that if someone kept a wild or dangerous animal such as a boar or a lion in a place where the public walked, the owner could be held responsible for double the damages.
The Romans liked to keep records, and one of the things they kept very good records of was the law and law cases. From these, we know a great deal about Roman law. In the 500s ad, the emperor Justinian collected vast numbers of these cases and had them compiled into what became known as the Digest of Roman Law. It took several years to amass all of these, and it was finally published in ad 533. This collection of cases and commentaries by jurists became the basis for many of the world's legal systems. Nearly every country in Europe and many others around the world can trace their law codes directly back to Justinian's Digest. England, however, developed its own code called English Common Law, and the United States copied this code, although most of the terminology and concepts were still derived from Roman law.
The Digest represents the end point of Roman law; by this time, Roman law was fully as extensive as our modern legal system, with laws and precedents to cover nearly every possible situation. This complex legal system did not spring up overnight but was the result of hundreds of years of accumulated legal practice. Despite the sophistication of Roman law, the lack of a well-developed enforcement arm of the state ensured that the streets of Rome were the scenes of frequent crimes, and, especially after dark, few wealthy persons would venture outside their homes without bodyguards.
Living in a large city offered a variety of experiences, excitement, and the opportunity to enjoy luxurious public amenities, but there was a darker side to this existence as well.
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