Actors and Audience in the Roman Courtroom

Leanna Bablitz, Leanne Bablitz

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2007
• eBook ISBN: 9781134089987
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Ancient History
• Index: History

What would you see if you attended a trial in a courtroom in the early Roman empire? What was the behaviour of litigants, advocates, judges and audience?

It was customary for Roman individuals out of general interest to attend the various courts held in public places in the city centre and as such the Roman courts held an important position in the Roman community on a sociological level as well as a letigious one.

This book considers many aspects of Roman courts in the first two centuries AD, both civil and criminal, and illuminates the interaction of Romans of every social group.

Actors and Audience in the Roman Courtroom is an essential resource for courses on Roman social history and Roman law as a historical phenomenon.

1
THE LOCATION OF LEGAL ACTIVITIES IN THE CITY OF ROME

As a large city and the heart of an empire, Rome was full of courts. These had an impact not only on individuals involved in the litigation but also on the physical environment of the city, since much of this activity was located in central public areas. During Rome’s normal business days any given number of these courts would be in session, thereby impinging on the daily life of this busy city’s inhabitants; the fora would be crowded with judges, advocates, and litigants from the city, Italy, or beyond, impeding, if not outright thwarting, movement through the public places of Rome and filling these areas with noise and distractions.

Here was an opportunity, scarcely avoidable, to see the legal system at work. The ideological importance of such visibility should not be underrated. In a society without mass information systems, public displays of diverse types (e.g. entertainments, audiences, processions, artistic decorations) served as direct and indirect methods of communication between state and public, ruler and ruled. Intertwined as they were with public daily life, the courts spoke on many levels. The exposed machinery of The Law could bring comfort to the innocent that wrongs were righted, and fear to the criminal, actual or potential, that retribution would be swift and sure. By linking these ideas with the emperor, the courts served as evidence of the organized functioning of the state under his direction.

This chapter places the Roman courtroom within the known topography of imperial Rome. Those individuals having a jurisdiction, namely various magistrates and the emperor, provide the chapter’s basic structure. Available evidence dictates that the emperor and the praetors with the most extensive jurisdictions of all magistrates, the praetor urbanus and praetor peregrinus, receive much attention. The quaestiones perpetuae (the standing courts presided over by the other praetors), the praefectus urbi, and the consuls can also be located, although the evidence is far scarcer. I also consider what evidence we have for the courts of other magistrates. Finally, I use a more chronological and spatial method to provide an overview of legal activities within Rome’s topography.

The goal of this chapter is to gain insight into the physicality of the Roman courts and understand to what degree the courts were interwoven into the life of an average Roman. In addition, the discussion encourages an appreciation of the diverse forms legal activities could take. This chapter, then, identifies the stage parameters within which the participants, the subjects of the subsequent chapters, “performed”.

Courts of the praetors

One of the consequences of Augustus’ efforts to bring order and system to the rather unruly government of the Roman world was an inevitable and inexorable increase in bureaucracy. This is manifested in the gradually rising numbers of the praetorship. In 23 BC Augustus optimistically set the number at 10.¹ By the end of his reign and through most of the reign of Tiberius, who was temperamentally opposed to bureaucratic accretions, it was set regularly at a reasonably modest 12, although the number climbed as high as 16.² In subsequent reigns the figure continues to fluctuate, with the average creeping ever upwards. Speaking of Claudius’ reign, Dio reports there were anywhere from 14 to 18.³

The praetors had a primary role at the very centre of the Roman legal system, as they were charged with overseeing the administration of private and public law within the city of Rome. The status of the praetors was hierarchical. At the top stood the praetor urbanus and the praetor peregrinus, each with his own court.⁴ Below them, the rank and file officials either presided over the various quaestiones perpetuae or took on some of the special praetorial tasks that developed as imperial administration became more complex. These tasks included such diverse duties as the direction of the treasury, or the supervision of two new courts, one of which heard disputes concerning fideicommissa, the other disputes between private citizens and the fiscus.⁵ The drama of Roman legal life, both private and public, was to a large extent played out in the courts of these officials.⁶

Attempts to identify the exact location in Rome of these magistrates’ courts meet with varied success. Some we can place with cautious confidence, while for others we can make only educated suggestions. Let us first look at the sources, beginning with the court for which we have the most evidence: the court of the praetor urbanus.

Praetor urbanus in the Forum Romanum

As the venue of the most prominent praetor, the court of the urban praetor unsurprisingly appears in the sources most often of all the courts linked to specific magistrates. The centrality of this court within Rome’s legal system guaranteed it an equally prominent location within the city. Relying chiefly on literary evidence, scholars suggest that for approximately the first three decades of Augustus’ reign, it was likely found at the east end of the Forum Romanum.⁷ The location is wrapped within a topographical snarl of controversial locales for such structures as the Puteal Libonis, Fornix Fabianus, Ianus medius, and Porticus Iulia, all of which are tied to the urban praetor’s court by a few passages of Horace and Persius and scholiasts’ comments on these texts.⁸ The Puteal Libonis seems most strongly connected to the court. The best composite description places the court “ante atria” near the Fornix Fabianus, inside the Porticus Iulia.⁹ Fitting these references into the context of the known Forum structures, topographers generally agree to place the court at the east end of the Forum.

How far to the east is disputed. Coarelli defines the location as “entro un ristretto spazio compreso tra il Tempio di Vesta, la Regia e l’angolo sud-est della Basilica Emilia”, “within a confined space contained between the Temple of Vesta, the Regia, and the south-east corner of the Basilica Emilia”.¹⁰ David, when he argues for an extra move of the tribunal, seems aware of the problem inherent in Coarelli’s placement, in that it situates the court in the exact location of the Temple of Divus Iulius. David believes that after the tribunal had been in the area defined by Coarelli, it moved northwards to the Porticus Iulia, which he equates with the portico of Gaius and Lucius attached to the south side of the Basilica Aemilia.¹¹ In this way he accounts for the displacement of the tribunal by the construction of the Temple of Divus Julius dedicated in 29 BC.¹² Perhaps these two positions can be combined by locating the tribunal always at the north-east corner of the Forum, with the construction of the temple causing the location of the north-east corner to shift somewhat to the west. Richardson adopts a more radical position, suggesting that by its unique design the niche in the speaker’s platform of the Temple of Divus Julius avoided trespassing on the Puteal Libonis, rather than respected the spot of Caesar’s pyre.¹³

By placing this court in the eastern Forum Romanum, we find a new physical immediacy in Horace’s description of his unfortunate meeting with a hanger-on, dated to sometime in the 30s BC:

ventum erat ad Vestae, quarta iam parte diei
praeterita, et casu tunc respondere vadato
debebat; quod ni fecisset, perdere litem.
‘si me amas’ inquit ‘paulum hic ades.’ ‘inteream si
aut valeo stare aut novi civilia iura;
et propero quo scis.’ ‘dubius sum quid faciam’ inquit,
‘tene relinquam an rem.’ ‘me, sodes.’ ‘non faciam’ ille,
et praecedere coepit. Ego, ut contendere durum est
cum victore, sequo...

Casu venit obvius illi
adversarius et ‘quo tu turpissime?’ magna
inclamat voce, et ‘licet antestar?’ ego vero
oppono auriculam. rapit in ius: clamor utrimque:
undique concursus. sic me servavit Apollo.

We had come to Vesta’s temple, a quarter of the day now having passed, and by chance at that hour he was supposed to appear in court having given a bond, and if he did not appear he would lose his case. “Pray,” he says, “do help me here a little.” “Confound me if I have the strength either to stand, or know the civil laws – and I hurry to you-know-where.” “I wonder,” he said, “what I should do, whether to leave my case or you.” “Me, please.” “No, I won’t,” he said, and he began to go ahead. I, as it is hard to struggle with the victor, follow By chance his adversary came face to face with this fellow. “Where are you going, you scoundrel?” he cries in a loud voice, and, “May I call you as a witness?” I offer my ear. He hastens him away to court. There is shouting from both parties, and confused scuffling. Thus did Apollo save me.¹⁴

Horace’s companion likely was involved in a suit before the common private court for Roman citizens – that of the praetor urbanus located very much nearby. Earlier in the satire Horace states that he was heading towards Caesar’s gardens located on the west bank of the Tiber. We can then reconstruct that Horace’s most likely path during this conversation would have taken him and his acquaintance down the Via Sacra, heading westwards. After a brief pause near the Temple of Vesta, Horace no doubt hastened upon his journey towards the west end of the Forum.¹⁵ The fact that Horace and the defendant ran into the plaintiff of the case while walking down the Via Sacra loses much of its fortuitous quality when one realizes that Horace and his companion had likely passed directly by the court itself. We can go so far as to wonder whether Horace’s companion perhaps asked for aid when the court came into immediate view.

Praetor urbanus in the Forum of Augustus

The praetor urbanus’ court did not remain permanently in the Forum Romanum. As part of his overall building plan to make Rome the envy of the empire for both beauty and utility, Augustus built another forum to deal with the increase in people and cases at law, and stipulated that public trials be held in this new forum “separatim”, (separately).¹⁶ Ever practical, Augustus likely insisted that the praetor move with the standing courts when the forum first opened in approximately 2 BC.¹⁷ The removal of this magistrate and all the associated traffic, including the likes of Horace’s companion, would have greatly eased the pressure on the Forum Romanum.

Epigraphical evidence both confirms this location and suggests a residency of long duration. Two sets of first-century documents, known as the Tabulae Herculanenses and the Tabulae Sulpiciorum, give a human dimension to legal activities within the Forum of Augustus.¹⁸ Originating in the region of Pompeii, the now legendary community located two hours south of Rome, nine of these documents place local individuals in Rome within this forum on a specific day and at a specific time for judicial purposes.¹⁹

Before discussing how these documents confirm the location of the praetor’s court in this forum, we must first briefly consider the nature of the texts. Seven of the relevant documents are vadimonia.²⁰ In its most basic form a vadimonium is a promise made by the defendant in a private dispute to appear at a particular place on a specific date for the continuation or hearing of the dispute. The second sentence of such a document normally consists of the promisor agreeing to pay a sum to his opponent if he does not appear.²¹ A vadimonium could take various forms, determined by the stage in the dispute, and whether it was voluntarily undertaken by the involved parties, sanctioned by a magistrate, or used to transfer a case to a remote court.²² The vadimonia of interest to this study are those which transfer a case from the local court to Rome. Throughout the Roman world the jurisdictions of local courts were limited in a number of ways. Local courts could not hear cases in which the sum at issue was larger than a set amount, nor could they hear cases in which being found liable also incurred infamia....

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Illustrations
• Acknowledgments
• Abbreviations
• Introduction
• 1 The Location of Legal Activities in the City of Rome
• 2 Reconstruction of the Roman Courtroom
• 3 The Litigant
• 4 The Judge
• 5 The Audience
• 6 The Advocate
• 7 The Advocate’s Role Outside and in the Courtroom
• Conclusions
• Notes
• Bibliography