Roman Law and the Legal World of the Romans

Status

Statuses of the Free

Among free Roman citizens there were a number of distinctions of rank. For instance, throughout the Republic there were sta tus groups (“orders”) of “knights” (wealthy and of free descent) and “senators” (knights who had started a political career) at the top of society. Smaller towns outside Rome often had simi lar orders on a local scale. Members of the elite had special protection from defamation (Chapter 18). These distinctions, however, were mostly of social and political importance; they did not much affect the kinds of legal issues discussed in this book (at least in theory). Of more importance was a distinction that evolved primarily in the second century ad. Roman crim inal law of the Republic had strongly avoided corporal pun ishment for Roman citizens (Chapter 19). Slaves and foreigners were subject to anything the authorities could imagine. Over the course of the early Empire (and, perhaps not accidentally, at a time when the proportion of persons who were citizens was on the rise), the privilege of avoiding torture and execu tion was restricted to a more select group. Those who more or less retained the old privilege were the honestiores (“more honorable”), while the newly vulnerable masses were dubbed humiliores (“more humble”). The dividing line seems to have fallen roughly at the level of the municipal orders. Not just the Roman elite, but that of the towns were honestiores ; all the rest were humiliores .

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