Crime & Community in Ciceronian Rome

by Andrew M. Riggsby

Overview

In the late Roman Republic, acts of wrongdoing against individuals were prosecuted in private courts, while the iudicia publica (literally "public courts") tried cases that involved harm to the community as a whole. In this book, Andrew M. Riggsby thoroughly investigates the types of cases heard by the public courts to offer a provocative new understanding of what has been described as "crime" in the Roman Republic and to illuminate the inherently political nature of the Roman public courts.

Through the lens of Cicero's forensic oratory, Riggsby examines the four major public offenses: ambitus (bribery of the electorate), de sicariis et veneficiis (murder), vis (riot), and repetundae (extortion by provincial administrators). He persuasively argues that each of these offenses involves a violation of the proper relations between the state and the people, as interpreted by orators and juries. He concludes that in the late Roman Republic the only crimes were political crimes.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780292785458
Publisher:	University of Texas Press
Publication date:	01/06/2023
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	267
File size:	3 MB

About the Author

Andrew M. Riggsby is Assistant Professor of Classics at the University of Texas at Austin.

Table of Contents

• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• Abbreviations
• Chapter 1. What Can We Know and How Can We Know It?
• Chapter 2. Ambitus and the Varieties of Economy
• Chapter 3. Murder (and How to Spot It)
• Chapter 4. Vis: A Plague on the State
• Chapter 5. Criminals Abroad
• Chapter 6. The Iudicia Publica in Roman State and Society
• Appendixes:
  • A. Summary of Cicero's Criminal Cases
  • B. Published vs. Delivered Speeches
  • C. Some Nontrials
• Notes
• Bibliography
• General Index
• Index Locorum

What People are Saying About This

Christopher P. Craig

This is an extraordinary work of scholarship....By examining in detail the arena where general discussions about 'crime' would be most likely to occur, Riggsby can make a strong argument that the general concept of 'crime,' so frequently discussed in our own society, is simply insignificant in Cicero's world. This is a new, penetrating, and fundamental insight for our understanding of Roman society in this period.
— (Christopher P. Craig, author of Form and Argument in Cicero's Speeches)