Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Murder Was Not a Crime: Homicide and Power in the Roman Republic
    Murder Was Not a Crime: Homicide and Power in the Roman Republic
    Murder Was Not a Crime: Homicide and Power in the Roman Republic
    Ebook324 pages4 hours

    Murder Was Not a Crime: Homicide and Power in the Roman Republic

    By Judy E. Gaughan

    4/5

    ()

    Read preview

    About this ebook

    “Explore[s] with impressive scholarship cases of unlawful killing in the regnal period, the early and mid-republic and the post-Sullan era.” —UNRV.com
     
    Embarking on a unique study of Roman criminal law, Judy Gaughan has developed a novel understanding of the nature of social and political power dynamics in republican government. Revealing the significant relationship between political power and attitudes toward homicide in the Roman republic, Murder Was Not a Crime describes a legal system through which families (rather than the government) were given the power to mete out punishment for murder.
     
    With implications that could modify the most fundamental beliefs about the Roman republic, Gaughan’s research maintains that Roman criminal law did not contain a specific enactment against murder, although it had done so prior to the overthrow of the monarchy. While kings felt an imperative to hold monopoly over the power to kill, Gaughan argues, the republic phase ushered in a form of decentralized government that did not see itself as vulnerable to challenge by an act of murder. And the power possessed by individual families ensured that the government would not attain the responsibility for punishing homicidal violence.
     
    Drawing on surviving Roman laws and literary sources, Murder Was Not a Crime also explores the dictator Sulla’s “murder law,” arguing that it lacked any government concept of murder and was instead simply a collection of earlier statutes repressing poisoning, arson, and the carrying of weapons. Reinterpreting a spectrum of scenarios, Gaughan makes new distinctions between the paternal head of household and his power over life and death, versus the power of consuls and praetors to command and kill.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherOpen Road Integrated Media
    Release dateJan 1, 2010
    ISBN9780292779921
    Murder Was Not a Crime: Homicide and Power in the Roman Republic

    Related to Murder Was Not a Crime

    Related ebooks

    Ancient History For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Readings: Roman Citizenship

      May 30, 2022

      By Ian Haynes Oxford University Press, 2013 ISBN: 978-0198795445 Blood of the Provinces provides readers with a comprehensive study on Rome famous auxilia. These soldiers were not citizens, yet they comprised more than half of Rome’s armies. This boo

      2 min read

    • Article

      Cicer-no

      May 30, 2022

      Cicer-no
      8 min read

    • Article

      Quid Pro Quo

      May 30, 2022

      Quid Pro Quo
      6 min read

    • Article

      Haunts

      Jul 26, 2022

      Haunts
      7 min read

    • Article

      Special Operations In Antiquity

      Aug 3, 2021

      By Donald Kagan Viking Penguin, 2003 ISBN: 978-0142004371 Kagan’s magisterial four-volume history of the Peloponnesian War (1969–1 987) is here distilled into a single easily digested volume. The scholarship is sound and up to date and the analysis i

      3 min read

    • Article

      Spicing Up The Roman Empire

      Aug 22, 2022

      Spicing Up The Roman Empire
      3 min read

    • Article

      Preliminaries

      May 30, 2022

      Preliminaries
      6 min read

    • Article

      Girl, Haunted

      Jul 23, 2019

      Girl, Haunted
      1 min read

    • Article

      Rise Of The Legion, Part II

      Jan 24, 2022

      By Frederik Vervaet Steiner Verlag, 2014 ISBN: 978-3515106306 Vervaet explores the principle of high command and prevailing auspices as central to the ideas of holding command and the waging of war during the Republic. The author offers interpretatio

      2 min read

    • Article

      Loud And Clear?

      Jan 23, 2023

      Loud And Clear?
      8 min read

    • Article

      Karma For Cleomenes

      May 30, 2022

      Karma For Cleomenes
      9 min read

    • Article

      Civis Romanus Sum!

      May 30, 2022

      Civis Romanus Sum!
      6 min read

    • Article

      A Medical Renaissance?

      Jan 21, 2021

      A Medical Renaissance?
      5 min read

    • Article

      The Devil’s domain

      Feb 22, 2024

      The Devil’s domain
      13 min read

    • Article

      Killers In The House Of God

      Dec 23, 2020

      Killers In The House Of God
      7 min read

    • Article

      What Happened To The Cockney Riviera? The Botched Regeneration Of Brutalist Utopia Thamesmead

      Nov 30, 2022

      A helicopter swoops over a sun-kissed marina, where young couples stroll along a waterfront promenade, between the masts of sailing boats and the chiselled concrete ziggurats of dashing modern flats. Up above, elevated walkways carry families from th

      8 min read

    • Article

      Two Notorious Witch Trials

      Mar 17, 2022

      Two Notorious Witch Trials
      1 min read

    • Article

      Where the Sun Never Set

      Mar 5, 2018

      Where the Sun Never Set
      3 min read

    • Article

      Caesar Vs The Senate

      Sep 12, 2019

      Caesar Vs The Senate
      12 min read

    • Article

      Rome After Dark

      Mar 2, 2020

      Rome After Dark
      7 min read

    • Article

      Why Is A South Korean Fringe Group Backing Japan's Position On WWII 'Comfort Women'?

      Jun 25, 2022

      They have been accused of being traitors, found guilty of defamation by courts, threatened online countless times and even assaulted in the street, but a group of South Korean activists and academics refuse to give in to the mainstream belief in thei

      5 min read

    • Article

      Warwick ‘The Kingmaker’

      Sep 30, 2021

      Warwick ‘The Kingmaker’
      2 min read

    • Article

      The Badbury Rings

      Jun 15, 2021

      ANCIENT BRITAIN AND THE ROMAN EMPIRE: ca. 300 BC – AD 520 A few miles north of Poole Harbour, on a high point between the rivers Stour and Allen, is the Iron Age fort of Badbury Rings, defended by three concentric rings of ramparts and ditches. It wa

      5 min read

    • Article

      Dr Emma Bridges

      Jan 30, 2020

      Dr Emma Bridges
      3 min read

    • Article

      Editorial – Oracles, Augurs, And Ancestors

      Oct 6, 2023

      Divination just might be one of the most foreign elements of the ancient world to modern audiences. We still have gods, we still have religion, but few of us, if any, turn to divination to seek answers to specific questions or to foretell the future.

      1 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for Murder Was Not a Crime

    4/5

    2 ratings1 review

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 4/5
      This is a well-written book about a fascinating subject. Okay, it is a bit dense in parts, stretching the concentration, but this is easily forgiven as the author gets to her point. The thrust of the book is about the necessity of holding the power of life and death in a state where the method of government changed radically over time. When one man is in power, for example the early kings of Rome, or the later emperors, or dictators in between, the power of life and death was a necessary tool to ensure their personal power. During the republic, when power was transitory, and split between two consuls, and the magistrates appointed by the senate, it was vital that no one man had this power. The book is written strictly chronologically, from the early kings, up to the time of Sulla, the dictator, whose proscriptions are well-known. It becomes apparent that, during the republic, any crimes, including murder, had to be crimes against the state, 'res publica', to have any real meaning. Most crimes, especially ones that involved homicide, (incidentally, I had not appreciated that homicide meant any killing, while murder meant deliberate killing) were dealt with within the family, usually by the 'pater familias', or by private individuals bringing a prosecution before magistrates or the people. This often meant, not death, but some form of exile, sometimes voluntary. On occasions, in the cases of obvious crimes against the state, special permission was given to the consul of the day to do what was necessary. Almost always this act came back to bite him at a later date. To accept that permission was to make yourself a hostage to fortune, and give your enemies a charge to bring against you. A well-known example of this is Cicero, who, as consul and in the name of the safety of the state, ordered the killing of Catalina, and eventually paid the price. In stark contrast the dictator Sulla, whose proscriptions meant that he designated his personal enemies as enemies of the state, got away with it and went into peaceful retirement. Gaughan writes well, and uses a multitude of references. There are good, useable, notes at the end, and a comprehensive bibliography. For anyone interested in the vagaries of Roman Law in the transition from Republic to Empire this is well worth a read.

    Book preview

    Murder Was Not a Crime - Judy E. Gaughan

    [dbook_preview_excerpt.html|rɕd̓und&(-M rO[,TAU0Oo8~90o>s?E_r;3+ ێE*s羮}Iھ>n\;7O?yl;Sؙyg7ׯȳ޴λ-W۲gYņ_7m\[6>cθEٕM=}Ws~٣W׷ӾbS-Λf>h6ޛ+0nk}d%6okq,!k7e]n /[9gof_~ã'/^<5.֮Gnp>-m MVͪW~^A~yoAC&Qe&ɋ|>'o3mqY7(za- sрR [4Dvj|_Wn'}tsjk M-׻ֹky@([06_yUkkZ%] %0|sf^$ٔ:cS` a@yk|1xy3=\]ٳϧ0g~7}=}ӧ맏x߾zrHt3w0wMWk?|x{ra~>4gW6|ؑ9}8ۼ~+GQW쑑]D˟_D>{tw-r{XWRtN^ٶ-y Y׸s-+q%cIZ?{}|~vurvuO?k>r1{j7o.N0;]}ǣ7vw󷟎WNOggMߚ'~<hNg?ȳoOTo9 ߩ1LM̷~9>8::5?}] kOq㓳su.=G)1!) ÛٻO_>8;=i_8ɾޜ]}|ɿ>bO{癹W[q}<ݸ2&@@[Eu7 opzLe >NFVYupqw19j يj v t}dB֎;U"4[H8Wܔ6L&1") x.ӲHvs]PA+&"K\Z4nOń1 cV ^Da_mř=*;ڴpP^ZL Lv6nUȿ=/q lWغ6ȕA$UzB"7Z/ y8? 'aʭS:{uY^ AHJbV*D7POpr4 C"js&/vS{lG6 yQGC՝yW-qIr`~1;9RV Ls &=кI_!aq>ZͶSK)n24o A1~ۖ: L<$ (] " D:h\q&|/?B,T4:b!bBUkо7 ͗pԁaӷGF%3*y*֖.ۦ~ҪYB]3h[H:FՃl:i}z-+i HewlG8] Upf'<'#-%ۂĻ7 [M8%cN'f1: D 5G5Uڑ7NIc4z6u*|hÜsB!?gqJBpP*$^4)(fOă?@U51Wͼ4?9îͩn]cH({T/Zw Z\ X8م E6IPæmS3X\Fwܘ7} :a*`3Hcg޴;`y{G+)E%?m>!N`x MjӡJ*N_@ȴZBbb%VOъU'\7iBȵm(sP V#3\4fhsW.!aeYROrT  ʮϓ|P4!%Nf|j-`Yu5jb#3YlP/C.JuhDKAC|,%@RKYx48xL=R*̿hr+(%+ R2sVlխy4_#(eLO=/t*xZ-uV<f- kDDd^)4(.?B@%dF0;H#!#E-Jxe"}3;$I<YU L,#9CGx׶T@@ks[O @׬g_N JJے X%#cN{Eso+/f b,FCh+1̹B7XxjݽֲR`Jշ3qJlZbrO|L<ҋ 5 i3$הR0j; / U9 FF5Uآ: a}J߭-Hid[Ⱦx&myC_AnQ2.)ˆ._֨Me1@еyj^Tʡ䖰gR4L/`]wteEqDM9eݬֆPmh^# |I%g;@EHPP4 ޔuKovvn 2C6Uȃ4.7,v;Ԃ T\s*4TN2fzF/[ IH.A.i {r wVe]w0*=xݳУzUUY,g-}Qm*벯<_ht5bQ\%_ fJ@[8 \IQ?Rj2gVCF_ qR U{8A运4]mW16XȆ|ZN?^ [\(>AkTAryث_.!62-KI l-]~E3u"@5j4u*ٔG4p*DXqeIʬDaӱþ B#zF-ɸQ:6_(*6[هִ+BAp8-_2y}b~vsqMH<"w`9%XfrR{HX6jk0H[inݸ*mpl&9<G(pǯrL CfC%V>EʛVqв^-;{0ܒ!(I|ZUTpƵBvZފ%8Wt\{r>`>eHdHGS"wh/wF$+.5ѽ s\,;6BfٹT.ê#E46Dٷb@Þ FTNƶ<"" bjK> g:NWR hU0|g m%Jڔ͐hi,Lwl#*;EgUX /4ʛk /ֲ%+e!hB-,6eUԻM d,8Ljqb-zy= V?2٫i0F%bmCR_`#ȲἸ,Szil,*Vb, ;Ks+x* ɞ%u).bédwZ J~%r^i@̄ (`|Rk:Ȑk+ 4QemL(NE5̬b :JRh@i  8XNxVȒjb'7fPC NB6MABWՊAa-=7D,+4 ༥r8Tt?آb3ZC1j2sW&T l*RֻqYSGr)U@uUh%3^6OGUʷТ1 @ݙ϶ee7RTH أ 7OblA(wAbvi+JV\w:Kq](G=IQfD\M{̏R +UtĖ EX0b_7\7%ĕj`N]kjcA=ӨxX]P WE c,q[+ci*P蓼e6V hdK\B:$bR(%"JQXV?U*iJa<#vkw!n&iv_ps{ɔ&؃\o Ni!XCϵŖ ˜ P٩3c7Zնi,Dj#GlRcC=`!Oͱ$>CaJ(;7&}7m XJG]Q`zEh2]+i0'XjݴY@uռUp*ʟ럅Ƕ` WI/mQ(@oxF\VIa$j6کmO' R?[4B?`u`бMwdR :eӹg)@qǑYRJNt^ %sv|Vk{_K Xa%䳤vlEoj:!P;/4,gKAC< '2vLb0Ҥpѽ#UMhe6&t&2 ↎ق?"Tv$Jlq-2C2o/h*f> \K~(*st\ +P1OEqo|`rXezb؇,0 V?N™0̭Iõ )y_p_~ թArC& /9ew$N&桔*)78)Ӥf0;53z") KZ޷G<(ƾ .~2D<ˣ7N( H49߯9*SjЯeJK/n8^"_!TE bu=$zВy;@Sʼn^;HC ^lIa.L5dwp$Y$.{4&:^Z> S6a4c\/ߓn:&ߕ{ta.ڒs} i^W"5M&¸0tW p#hɎ L(,C%!B ?@B%3v3P~|NxpNd-7ƒ[r7/Ȉlz_ڀـ zawӄI L 0xp't"R&R@hx5 DŽ)E֧PG&Ss`hb(.ߘff f6mH[ߩAEa8A/!#BsBI8v?) 4RX78R\J1Uiy0DEytjs `=9{yG‡sb4yS[ \l%Öu_yT|aEh^<unuAA{&u!9z(Ҏ."Yq\(q>tU~l9&/ĴȆP/]vZቢӕaBO͏=c{*_r%V zxx@W<D?luf!QpQ4D/ Գ nѶYLryѼ= X J}[!Jd 7,|td[6Pzo|-|?Yné~[6ʲ{dMTn)l۶J^1Jn_$M0I%4=h6, $:$Eq #XK1wIoUpz뽿7.O='5T cV/IJ_@,o4k`,]_ޜRlR>NO≃Pnb+d+0 :]&epuz?µ1S۠%[N宆 8PSVizuTceN^X^40現txoăr@?GwPT{W$q!bѽ+Nc;P{ƒVlY r #(BkIX4ٴwED Ct ,CIU L&*@bC Yܼ~O5<g&;2}ߊ+2"̘$[qzn ۦQ1Nj:"2^.Z[*`-{cRF,~ft7Mi}5\䣭g)pRיxsIq阓]m4в HY4Eŝ-j٬f0[[iEoFBATƩ޹ׅK\ҕǰSy|#:ò~&#=3yX4R}bym]A<rA򖓭SLpuG-'>f3ss wIL3:m>Ȝ$# O/z@,nl~ 5)lb\TwOHQ +M1l, L<"=֧n~+po!({@ 7"hպ6۬pw+'U/t8YDѡR몼vn=q2*W
    Enjoying the preview?
    Page 1 of 1