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Poena legis repetundarum

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 August 2013

A. N. Sherwin-White
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Extract

According to Mommsen the various laws de repetundis, from, the Lex Acilia of the Gracchan period to the Lex Iulia of 59 B.C., never attached any heavier political penalty to the offence than infamia, with consequent exclusion from the Senate, and the exile of those condemned for extortion was solely due to the difficulty of repayment. Mommsen also held that the penalty of twofold restitution introduced by the Lex Acilia was abandoned by the Sullan Lex Cornelia in favour of the simple repayment established by the original Lex Calpurnia of 149 B.C. Only during the Julio-Claudian principate and later were severe penalties in the form of relegatio and exilium inflicted in special circumstances (extra ordinem) by the authority of the senatorial court and not by any remodelling of the Lex Iulia, which continued to inflict only the lesser penalties.

This general doctrine has caused considerable uneasiness for three reasons. First, there is an apparent contradiction between Mommsen's view and two statements of Cicero, which assert that the penalties for extortion were increased in severity by successive laws. Second, Cicero constantly speaks in cases of extortion, whether as prosecutor or in defence, as though the caput of the accused were at stake.

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Research Article
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Papers of the British School at Rome , Volume 17 , November 1949 , pp. 5 - 25
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Copyright © British School at Rome 1949

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References

1 The main discussion of the general history of the extortion law are: C. Zumpt, T., De legibus iudiciisque repetundarum in Republica Romana commentationes duae (Berlin, 1845Google Scholar), and Commentatio Tertia (Berlin, 1847Google Scholar); Mommsen, Th., Römisches Strafrecht (Leipzig, 1899) pp. 705–32Google Scholar. Strachan-Davidson, J. L., Problems of the Roman Criminal Law (Oxford, 1912), vol. II, ch. XIVGoogle Scholar, criticises Mommsen's view of the death penalty. The new evidence for the penalty of the Lex Iulia contained in the fift Augustan edict from Cyrene is discussed by A. von Premerstein, ‘Die fünf neugefundenen Edikte des Augustus aus Kyrene’, Zeitschrift d. Sav.-Stift., r.a., 48, 1928, 480–516; Stroux, J. and Wenger, L., ‘Die Augustus-Inschrift auf dem Marktplatz von Kyrene’, Abh. der Bayer. Akad., phil. hist. Kl., 34, 2 Abh., 1928, 112 ffGoogle Scholar. Arangio-Ruiz, V., ‘L'Editto di Augusto ai Cirenei’, Riv. filci. 56, 1928, 321–64Google Scholar, and ibid. 58, 1930, 220–330; A. von Premerstein, , ‘Zu den kyrenaïschen Edikten des Augustus’, Zeitschrift d. Sav.-Stift., r.a., 51, 1931, 431–59Google Scholar; De Visscher, F., Les Edits d'Auguste découverts à Cyrène (Louvain, 1940), ch. viiGoogle Scholar. A full bibliography of the fifth edict will be found in De Visscher, op. cit. pp. 13–15.

The author's thanks are due to Professor H. M. Last for many helpful criticisms, and to Professor E. Fraenkel for assistance on questions of Latinity.

2 Below p. 12.

3 Below p. 9 ff.

4 For the nature of the capital penalty in the late Republic see Strachan-Davidson, op. cit. ch. xv–xvi, and E. Levy, ‘Die römische Kapitalstrafe’, Sitz. d. Heid. Akad. Wiss., phil. hist. Kl., 1930–1. Levy goes far to establish the view that the only capital sentence known to Roman law before 63 B.C. was death, though this was very seldom carried out; he further maintains, not perhaps so successfully, that before that date the term caput, in contexts of damnatio, can only refer to life proper, not to mere civil status.

5 Mommsen, op. cit. pp. 706–8; Staatsrecht, II3, 224; Zumpt, op. cit. (1845), pp. 9–12. For the first case of extortion, Livy 43, 2.

6 Gaius 4, 19. One may doubt whether this really refers to the extortion law; Gaius seems rather to be referring to the original laws which introduced the new action of condictio as such. The difficulty raised by the presence of the process sacramento in the same law has not yet been solved, though it is faced by Strachan-Davidson, op. cit. p. 5. But it remains true that the extortion law is based on the principle of condictio.

7 Zumpt, op. cit. p. 13. Valerius Maximus 6, 9, 10.

8 For the ‘poena simpli’ see Lex Acilia 59 (Bruns, Fontes Iuris Romani 7, 10).

9 The identification of the document Brans FIR 7 10 with a Gracchan Lex Acilia need hardly be discussed. Carcopino, J. in Autour des Gracques (Paris, 1928), pp. 205 ff.Google Scholar, it may be added, never meets the point, rather forgotten by recent critics on both sides, that the document is the first law after the closely associated Lex Calpurnia and Lex Iunia; any intervening law must have been quoted, as they were, to clear up points of overlap.

10 Mommsen, Strafrecht, pp. 728–9.

11 Zumpt, op. cit. (1845) pp. 13, 26; Mommsen, op. cit. p. 729. For Cato see Velleius, ii. 8, 1.

12 qu)oius eorum ita nomen ex h.1. post k. Sept., quae eo anno fuerint, delatum erit, quei eorum eo ioudicio condemnatus erit, quanti eius rei slis ae(stumata erit) … praetor qui ex h.l. q(uaeret facito … uti) privato solvatur.

13 Cf.l. 13: quei (… ioudicio puplico conde)mnatus siet quod circa eum in senatum legei non liceat.

14 In general see Stein., A.Der römische Ritterstand (München, 1927), ch. iGoogle Scholar. Polybius vi. 13–18 on the Roman constitution knows no equestrian class, and though this is incomplete, he certainly includes the business elements in the plebs.

15 Mommsen, op. cit. p. 729; Strachan-Davidson, op. cit. p. 13.

16 Auctor ad Herennium, 1, 20.

17 Bruns, FIR 7 8; cf. Stuart-Jones, JRS 1926, p. 170 f. The senatorial oath really excludes any date before 100 B.C., when Saturninus invented such oaths.

18 Lex Acilia l. 13, Digest 48, 11, 6. Cf. Zumpt, op. cit. p. 13.

19 Lex Acilia l. 29.

20 Cicero, , de Oratore i, 225Google Scholar: ‘eripite nos ex faucibus eorum quorum crudelitas nisi nostro sanguine non potest expleri’; cf. Strachan-Davidson, op. cit. p. 80. Cicero does not seem to have taken this in a technical sense: ‘ne iudicio iniquo exsorbeatur sanguis tuus, quod sapienti negant accidere posse’ is his gloss.

20A Cicero says that M. Aquilius, tried under the Servilian law in 98 B.C., was ‘in civitate retinendus’; in references to the actual speech of Antonius in defence there is no hint of a capital penalty, de Or., ii, 124 and 194. In ii in Verr. 5, 3 he is only ‘ad iudicum crudelitatem servatus’. Rutilius Rufus, another victim, retired into exile after suffering only a monetary penalty: Cassius Dio, fr. 97.

21 For the date see Last, H. M. in CAH ix, 163Google Scholar; J. P. Balsdon, ‘History of the Extortion Court at Rome, 123–70 B.C.’, Papers ofthe British School at Rome, 1938, 106–14.

22 Balsdon, art. cit. pp. 105, 112. Cicero, , ii in Verr, I, 26Google Scholar.

23 Mommsen, op. cit. p. 709. Cicero, pro Rao. Post. 9.

24 de Officiis 2, 21.

25 Mommsen, op. cit. pp. 709, 728–9; Strachan-Davidson, op. cit. p. 13, n. 2.

26 Zumpt, op. cit. p. 36.

27 Ibid. pp. 41–1. Mommsen makes no reference to Zumpt's point in Strafrecht, 705–32.

28 Div. in Caec. 19; i in Verr. 56.

29 ii in Verr. 2, 76; cf. 3, 52.

30 Op. cit. p. 14, n. 5.

31 Suet. Div. Iul. 43.

32 Zumpt, op. cit. p. 42.

33 For Caesar v. Antonius see Asconius 75.

34 Cf. Levy, op. cit. pp. 14 ff., 26 ff.

35 Cf. De Visscher, op. cit. p. 171.

36 ii, 3: 52, 129, 133, 134.

37 For fortunae, the plural, as property see Thesaurus L. L. s.v. col. 1180.

38 ii in Verr. 5, 128. For calamitas in a similar context see pro Caecina 100: ‘quia volunt poenam aliquam subterfugere aut calamitatem eo solum vertunt … cum … vincula neces ignominiasque vitant’.

39 ii in Verr. 5, 163.

40 Ibid. 5, 177. The passage in 3, 152, where Metellus refuses to accept a civil action against a third party ‘quod per vim aut metum abstulerit’, because ‘praeiudicium se de capite C. Verris per hoc iudicium nolle fieri’, has been used by Stroux (art, cit. pp. 115 f.) as evidence for the capital penalty, but the reference could equally well be to the Lex Plautia de vi (cf. De Visscher, op. cit. p. 170), and perhaps better, because, one might add, the extortion law was not concerned with circumstances such as vis or metus. Only Roman citizens were involved.

41 Div. in Caec. 71.

42 pro Fonteio 3.

43 pro Flacco 96, after a vaguer reference to ‘sanguis’ in 95.

44 ad Fam. 14, 4, 2; pro Quinctio 8, 26, 27, 94.

45 Suet., Div. Iul. 42: ‘locupletes eo facilius scelere se obligarent quod integris patrimoniis exulabant’. The reference is primarily to murder.

46 Plut. Cicero 8; Zumpt, op. cit. p. 50.

47 Cic. pro Cluentio 116: ‘in litibus aestimandis fere iudices … quod se perfunctos iam esse arbitrantur cum de reo iudicarunt neglegentius attendunt cetera’.

48 Ibid. 115–16.

49 Cic. pro Cluentio 116: ‘itaque et maiestatis absoluti sum permulti, quibus damnatis de pecuniis repetundis lites maiestatis essent aestimatae’. Some manuscripts omit the second ‘maiestatis’. For similar interpretations see Peterson, W., M. Tulli Ciceronis pro Cluentio Oratio (London 1899 etc.) 197–8Google Scholar, and Strachan-Davidson, op. cit. p. 9, but the full implication of the passage was missed by them.

50 ‘Si qua in eum lis capitis inlata est non admittunt (iudices)’,—whether one accepts Postgate's excellent correction ‘remittunt’ is for present purposes immaterial.

51 ii in Verr. i. 95–100; pro Rob. Post. 8–11.

52 Peterson, op. cit. pp. 197–8, quoting apparently a private communication of Dr. Reid.

53 Asconius 78. For a parallel passage cf. Caelius in Cic., ad. fam. 8, 2, 1Google Scholar, of a person acquitted on an unknown charge in 51 B.C., possibly extortion: ‘itaque relictus legi Liciniae maiore esse periculo videtur’.

53a Cf. pro Caecina 100, quoted n. 38 above.

54 de Officiis 2, 75.

55 pro Rab. Post. 8.

56 ii in Verr. i, 26. Cf. Balsdon, art. cit. p. 102.

57 Cf. Forcellini, Totius Latinitatis Lexicon, s.v. ‘sancire’ p. 323 and ‘sanctus’ p. 325.

58 in Pisonem 90.

59 Levy, op. cit. pp. 30–1.

60 pro Rab. Post. 41 and 48.

61 Ibid. 37. Cf. Mommsen, op. cit. pp. 731–2.

62 in Pisonem 50 and 91; also de Prov. Cons. 7. Mommsen, op. cit. pp. 719–20, gives the facts but does not face the difficulty, although he insists that the condictio principle implied that the poena was estimated in cash. He adds that the ownership of ships was forbidden to senators by the Cornelian law, but the ‘antiquae leges et mortuae quae vetant’ quoted by Cicero need not be extortion laws.

63 Cf. pro Cluentio 90, 104, 114.

64 in Pisonem 90.

65 Cic., ad Fam. 8, 8, 3Google Scholar.

66 Cf. Mommsen, op. cit. p. 726.

67 For bibliography see n. 1. The text here followed is that of De Visscher. The s.c. is now conveniently available in SEG ix 8.

68 De Visscher, op. cit. pp. 174, 181–2.

69 Ibid. pp. 182–3.

70 Ibid. p. 179.

71 Ll. 97–99.

72 Stroux, art. cit. pp. 112 ff.

73 Von Premerstein, art. cit. (1928) 516, (1931) 447.

74 De Visscher, op. cit. pp. 163 ff.

75 Mommsen, , Staatsrecht, III 31148 fGoogle Scholar.

76 L. 104–5. ὤν ἂν ἐν τῆ συνκλήτῳ αἰτίας ἐπιφέρουσιν κτλ.

77 De Visscher, op. cit. pp. 175–7. Hence, Ibid. p. 203, he regards the trial of Marius Priscus for judicial corruption as being under the Lex Cornelia ‘inter sicarios’, not the extortion law.

78 Above p. 10 f.

79 De Inventione 2, 59–60: ‘non enim oportet in recuperatorio iudicio eius malefici de quo inter sicarios quaeritur praeiudicium fieri’.

80 De Visscher, op. cit. pp. 178 f.

81 The question has been discussed in part by W. W. Buckland, ‘Civil Proceedings against Ex-magistrates in the Republic’, JRS 27, 37 ff. He holds that at most even citizens could only bring a civil action in respect of things done by a magistrate in his private capacity. A comparison of the stories of abuse of imperium in Livy 42, 1, 7–11, before the Lex Calpurnia, and in Gellius, Aulus, Noctes Atticae X, 3Google Scholar, afterwards, is instructive. Actions de vi publica did not concern provincials directly, Dig. 48, 6.

82 For the inadequate checks on consular and praetorian imperium in general see Mommsen, , Staatsrecht, I 3 705 f., 209 ffGoogle Scholar.

83 Pliny, , Ep. 3, 9, 15Google Scholar.

84 Cf. De Visscher, op. cit. p. 183.

85 Zumpt, op. cit. (1847), pp. 38–40 lists all the Tacitean cases which he recognised as extortion. Those under Tiberius are discussed briefly by Rogers, R. S., Criminal Trials and Criminal Investigations under Tiberius (Middletown, Connecticut, 1935Google Scholar).

86 Tac., Ann. 3, 66–69Google Scholar. Despite Tacitus' hint of maiestas charges, the precedent of Volesus Messalla (below p. 19), the cross-reference in 4, 15, and Tacitus' own statement ‘nec dubium habebatur saevitiae captarumque pecuniarum teneri reum’, all combine to show that only the extortion charge was pressed, despite the torture of servile witnesses. Cf. Rogers, op. cit. pp. 66–70.; contra, De Visscher, op. cit. p. 190, n. 3.

87 Tac., Ann. 4, 15Google Scholar. Mommsen, Strafrecht, 713, n. 1; Rogers, op. cit. p. 73.

88 Tac., Ann. 13, 30Google Scholar. Zumpt omits, but the case is in a list of extortion cases; ‘luxuria saevitiaque’ is merely a variant form of ‘repetundarum reus’ like ‘provincia avare habita’ in the same passage.

89 Tac., Ann. 13, 52Google Scholar.

90 Ibid. 14, 28. Cf. Tac., Hist. 2, 10Google Scholar.

91 Tac., Hist. 4, 45Google Scholar.

92 Tac., Ann. 4, 31Google Scholar. Cf. Zumpt, op. cit. p. 38; Rogers, op. cit. p. 83. Cases omitted as doubtful include that of C. Silius and his wife Sosia, (Ann. 4, 19–20Google Scholar), mainly an extortion case but complicated by maiestas; Sosia certainly was punished for complicity in extortion, cf. the rider of Cotta, loc. cit. 20. Tacitus says: ‘saevitum in bona non ut stipendariis pecuniae redderentur quorum nemo repetebat’. Were the charges of ‘saevitia’ only? Rogers, op. cit. p. 77, underestimates the element of extortion. The result was suicide. In the case of Labeo, Pomponius (Ann. 6, 29Google Scholar; Cassius Dio 58, 24) the charge was ‘male administratae provinciae’; Dio mentions ‘gifts’. The result was suicide, but Tacitus gives a wrong legal explanation of the motive; cf. Rogers, op. cit. p. 151.

Taurus, Statilius, in Ann. 12, 59Google Scholar, was charged with extortion and ‘magicae superstitiones’, and committed suicide.

93 Tac., Ann. I, 74Google Scholar. Cf. De Visscher, op. cit. p. 186.

94 Rufus: Tac., Ann. 12, 22Google Scholar; Hist., 1, 77. Capito, : Ann. 13, 33Google Scholar; 14, 48. Blaesus, : Ann. 14, 18Google Scholar; Hist. 1, 77.

95 Suet., , Otho 2, 1Google Scholar.

96 Hist. 1, 77. Uncertain sentences are: Cordus, Caesius, Ann. 3, 38Google Scholar; 70, evidently less than exile; Laenas, Vipsanius, Ann. 13, 30Google Scholar.

97 Cf. De Visscher, op. cit. pp. 184, 192–3, 204 ff. He does not attempt to sort out the Julio-Claudian cases, cf. below p. 24.

98 Cf. De Visscher, op. cit. p. 190, n. 3. De Visscher misses the connexion between Messalla's massacres and the Tacitean saevitia. For Messalla Tac., Ann. 3, 68Google Scholar; Seneca, , de Ira 2, 5Google Scholar.

99 Above p. 13.

100 Zumpt, op. cit. (1847), p. 28. Cf. De Visscher similarly, op. cit. p. 191.

101 Tac., Ann. 13, 52Google Scholar, below p. 24.

102 De Visscher has analysed them in detail, op. cit. pp. 194 ff. The following remarks assume the conclusions reached by De V. in respect of procedure, with themodifications suggested below p. 23.

103 Pliny, , Ep. 2, 11Google Scholar.

104 Ibid. s. 12.

105 Ibid. s. 2.

106 Ibid. s. 3.

107 Ibid. s. 4.

108 Ibid. s. 19.

109 Pliny, , Ep. 4, 9, 16Google Scholar.

110 Ibid. s. 17 and 19.

111 Ibid. 7, 33, 4 and 7.

112 Ibid. 3, 9, 22.

113 Ibid. 8, 14, 2–11; Suet., Dom. 8, 2Google Scholar. Even under Trajan an extortion case might be referred to the Princeps in special circumstances; cf. Pliny, , Ep. 7, 6, 6 and 7, 10Google Scholar, where the intention of the provincials was in doubt.

114 Cf. Baebius Massa above, and Suet., Dom. 8, 2Google Scholar; the latter was not a normal case of iudices dati according to De Visscher, op. cit. 191.

115 Pliny, , Ep. 8, 14, 2Google Scholar.

116 Pliny, , Ep. 5, 20, 7Google Scholar.

117 Cf. De Visscher, op. cit. pp. 203–4.

118 Pliny, , Ep. 3, 9, 14–15Google Scholar; 17.

119 Gifts, Ibid. 4, 9, 17. Caepio's sententia: ‘non sine ratione veniam dedit facto vetito quidem, non tamen inusitato’. Cf. also the proposed s.c. to legalise the general grant of ‘testium evocatio’ to the defence, Ibid. 6, 5, 2; this shows the uneasiness of the better lawyers at the casual treatment of procedure.

120 Dig. 48, n, 6, 1.

121 Ibid. 1, 9, 2.

122 Ibid. 22, 5, 13.

123 Ibid. 48, 11, 7, 3.

124 They were bracketed as a gloss by Beseler.

125 ‘Vel exilio puniuntur vel etiam durius.’

126 Stroux, art. cit. p. 135; Premerstein, art. cit. (1931), p. 455.

127 De Visscher, op. cit. pp. 197–202.

128 Pliny, , Ep. 2, 11, 2Google Scholar.

129 Ibid. 4, 9, 16. Cf. De Visscher, op. cit. p. 201.

130 Pliny, , Ep. 5, 20, 7Google Scholar.

131 Ibid. 2, 11, 9 and 12–13. De V., op. cit. pp. 220 f.

132 Ll. 130–4.

133 Cf. De Visscher, op. cit. p. 201.

134 Pliny, , Ep. 4, 9, 17Google Scholar: ‘Macro legem intuenti consentaneum fuit damnare eum qui … munera acceperat’.

135 De Visscher, op. cit. pp. 206–8; V. Arangio-Ruiz, art. cit. (1928), p. 351.

136 Granius Marcellus: Tac., Ann. 1, 74Google Scholar. Cordus: Ibid. 3, 38; 70. De Visscher, op. cit. pp. 187, 189. If Cordus was sent before the jury, why not others where Tacitus' language is similar?

137 Above p. 20.

138 Ann. 13, 52.

139 Tacitus implies, though he does not explicitly say, that the witnesses were from the province; the s.c. allowed subpoenaed witnesses from Italy only, and required the trial to be finished in thirty days.

140 Tac., Ann. 13, 43Google Scholar.

141 Tac., Ann. 14, 18Google Scholar.