Roman Law and the Legal World of the Romans

Status

Either she could assume the potential liability herself (and be tried for the slave’s actions), or she could surrender the slave to the aggrieved party to do with as he wished. (What they actu ally did – torture? execution? resale? hard labor? – is unclear.) This latter option is called “noxal surrender.” Slaves accused of “public” (i.e., criminal) offenses were apparently dealt with summarily by magistrates. Over the course of the empire, direct trials of slaves for criminal offenses were introduced, but noxal surrender remained the norm for civil actions. Citizenship is a particularly important status category because Roman law (like most ancient systems) was primarily “per sonal” rather than “territorial” in its reach. That is, “Roman law” was not thought of as the law of a particular area, but law for Roman people, wherever they happened to be. (Note that this does not mean that foreigners in Rome were uncon strained by the law. It would be more accurate to say that they were largely unprotected by the law, both against individuals and against the state.) Citizenship was typically inherited from one’s parents. If they had different citizenships, or if they were not legally married, then the children normally inherited their mother’s status. There was no normal method of naturalization, though citizenship could be given as a reward for service to the Roman state. The main sources of new citizens were manumis sion of individual slaves (as just discussed) and imperial grants Citizenship

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