Tiberius, Imperial Detective | Hacker News Reader

Tiberius, Imperial Detective

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69 pointsdiodorus25 comments

If anyone wants to read about mystery/crime investigation in Ancient Rome, the SPQR series is a bunch of fun fictional books (of questionable historical accuracy):

> The stories are told in first-person form by Senator Decius Caecilius Metellus the Younger (born c 90-95 BC), nephew of Metellus Pius and member of the powerful Caecilius Metellus family of the Roman Senate. The stories are told in flashback-form by the old Decius, writing during the reign of Augustus Caesar. The stories range from 70 BC (The King's Gambit) to 20 BC ("The King of Sacrifices").

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SPQR_series

For non-fiction, see Infamy: The Crimes of Ancient Rome by Jerry Toner:

> Join the historian Jerry Toner on a detective's hunt to discover the extent of Rome's crimes. From the sexual peccadillos of Tiberius and Nero to the chances of getting burgled if you left your apartment unguarded (pretty high, especially if the walls were thin enough to knock through) he leaves no stone unturned in his quest to bring the Eternal City to book.

* https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/43684657-infamy

Thanks, the series sounds interesting !

I've sampled a lot of historical fiction set in classic Rome, and John Maddox Roberts is the writer who's closer to getting the 'flavor' right, to my mind.

I mean in a sense of not letting modern issues, tastes and sensibilities leak into the classical (un-romantic) callous, deeply rustic, mindset barely dented by urban sophistication in large cities.

let us not forget what must be the greatest work of historical, roman fiction: asterix. Incidentally, most of my knowledge of ancient roman culture comes from those comics. Also, an insight into european culture as it looked in the 1970s and 60s.

For kids there are the Roman Mysteries by Caroline Lawrence. My daughter is reading them and loves the books. I have not read the books except for a bit here and there - and what I have read is well written, fun and seems be accurate.

Also:

Steven saylor’s “Gordianus, the finder” series.

Tho this is likely completely fictional except incidental details of the setting in Rome just pre AD.

> We pay taxes so the state will keep us safe. On the other hand, we don’t expect the state to be getting all up in our bedrooms, legalizing who women can have sex with or rewarding women with public honors for having children. That’s private. The Romans, however, saw things very differently. Rewarding women for babies was A-OK, making laws about how much jewelry a girl could wear was just sensible policy. But murder? That was family business.

I love reading things like this. Its a good reminder that things we think are common sense (like the government being involved in murder but not in legislating how much jewelry a girl can wear) are not necessarily so. They are very much cultural based. And these are both human cultures. What would an alien culture think is common sense?

> Its a good reminder that things we think are common sense (like the government being involved in murder but not in legislating how much jewelry a girl can wear) are not necessarily so. They are very much cultural based. And these are both human cultures. What would an alien culture think is common sense?

First, I think the word "culture" is extremely loaded and ambiguous, and stereotypes great masses of individuals each with their own opinions, and to make static things that constantly change. But that said, whatever it is, it exists somehow.

IMHO this relativism argument - that it's nothing more than local 'culture' - is greatly overstated. The evidence is that individual liberty is a principle embraced by people almost every place that they have had the choice: The U.S., almost every country in Europe, Japan, China (where they have a choice - in Taiwan, in Hong Kong until very recently, and in Tienanmen Square in 1989 - they strongly advocate for it), Korea, India, almost every country in Latin America, Tunisia, Syria (where they had a choice), Benin, Botswana, etc. etc. In addition, people risk their lives to travel from repressive countries without traditions of liberty to free countries and they strongly embrace the freedom. My ancestors did. Finally, you don't see people migrating the other way.

(I don't see how speculating on unknown, non-human, intelligent lifeforms informs the discussion.)

I feel that you've kind of missed GP's point, which is that we tend to take for granted the functions of the state, when in fact those functions have shifted over time. For example, it was not until relatively recently (i.e., the 20th century) that providing a social safety net came to be considered a core competency of governments. To take another example: the Roman Empire provided free rations of grain and olive oil (the annona) to all citizens of Rome and Constantinople for several hundred years. This was an incredibly big deal because it a) set a high base level of demand for bulk goods that enabled the huge economies of scale upon which Roman long distance trade operated; and b) enabled the populations of Rome and Constantinople to reach levels that no European city would again equal until the Early Modern period. Romans probably viewed the annona like modern Americans view social security. Romans would (probably) have thought social security ridiculous, whereas most Americans would view the annona as a large scale encroachment by the state on market pricing of commodities.

The author of the book seems to be confounding two different categories. The excerpt is about how there was no state apparatus to investigate homicide as a matter of course. But that doesn't mean there was no laws against homicide.

Did they have laws against homicide? I took "But murder? That was family business." to mean they didn't have laws against homicide. It was up to each family to decide what to do about it on an individual basis. I could be wrong. I know nothing about Roman Jurisprudence.

I think since the early roman kingdom days, murders within a family (parricide) were punished by the state, at least some of them (e.g. a father might have had right of death over his offspring, but maybe that ended once they reached adulthood?). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poena_cullei on the punishment for parricide at a later time has something on it.

Eventually it would be extended to homicide outside one's family (Lex Cornelia de sicariis et veneficis), but as the GP says the article confuses things a bit between the state not being involved at all, and a lack of investigation.

I think murder was just like anything else in that regard, meaning that the state would not prosecute any crimes on its own without someone going to court in the first place. But that was also the case for the jewellery example, or anything else: if nobody complained about it, the state did not have a police force looking out for these things and the crime would go unpunished.

I was surprised to read, a few days ago, that until late in the middle age (12th century if I recall correctly), waging personal wars, vendetta, revenges were seen as normal business. It took the Holy Roman Emperor to install courts of justice and force people to go through there and still took generations to drill in the idea that "He looked at my daughter in a lewd way so I put an arrow in his eye" was not a way to do things.

It was accepted long after the 12th century, even in America. Aaron Burr, while vice president of the United States, killed Hamilton in a duel in 1804. Future president Andrew Jackson killed Charles Dickinson in a duel in 1806 for insulting his wife and calling Jackson a coward.

Ah but duels are a different matter, they obey codes and rules and require mutual consent. Last duel in France was in 1958 actually.

I suppose one might argue that if someone did not wish to consent to a feud or to owe weregild, that someone should have thought better than to perform whatever act incurred the penalty.

Quite a bit later: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ewiger_Landfriede

In western history, this was definitely something (re?)introduced by various germanic people after the western roman empire collapse, and already they were encouraging monetary reparations.

In roman times, if someone killed your cousin you could go to court and it would mostly end there. After the collapse, if someone killed your cousin your family had the right to kill someone of "equal value" from the family of the killer. Aside from the brutality and senseless violence (as seen from us today), the biggest problem was that people disagreed on "equal value", resulting in a feud, i.e. an escalation of revenge because each party felt that the other side's killing was way more than warranted to make things even.

So the states (starting from the early barbarian kingdoms) would encourage the family of the killed to accept a monetary payment to avoid the murders to spiral out of control. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weregild. I think the concepts of feud and weregild did not even exist in the roman world.

But you are right that for a long time you still had the right for revenge, until eventually it was fully phased out. A bit like the transition between the gold standard and fiat currency.

> I think the concepts of feud and weregild did not even exist in the roman world.

The article related to this post mentions that in Rome, working out monetary compensation for the life of a family member was a common practice. It's not a uniquely germanic-in-origin practice.

I think from their perspective it was very different though. The article specifically talks about compensation to a woman's family if her husband kills her. It sounds like if a slave or a woman was killed, it was considered similar to someone's cattle being killed or a property crime, as opposed to a homicide of a free man, and thus something to be payed for. It seems that the remarkable thing about this story (aside from the emperor's involvement) was that usually a husband wouldn't be encouraged to kill himself for murdering his wife.

Whereas in the barbarian kingdoms and later on, all murders were initially a private matter and people retained the right to kill someone back (not necessarily the killer) unless they opted for the compensation. If this specific case happened after the fall of the empire, probably the father would have just killed the husband back instead of seeking government involvement. And probably the husband's family would have not thought it fair and either seek compensation or kill another member of the wife's family.

Either way, I'm glad things have changed since then!

> It took the Holy Roman Emperor to install courts of justice

See The Medieval Origins of the Legal Profession by Brundage:

> In the aftermath of sixth-century barbarian invasions, the legal profession that had grown and flourished during the Roman Empire vanished. Nonetheless, professional lawyers suddenly reappeared in Western Europe 700 years later during the 1230s, when church councils and public authorities began to impose a body of ethical obligations on those who practiced law. This book traces the history of legal practice from its genesis in ancient Rome to its rebirth in the early Middle Ages and eventual resurgence in the courts of the medieval church. By the end of the eleventh century, the book argues, renewed interest in Roman law combined with the rise of canon law of the Western church to trigger a series of consolidations in the profession. New legal procedures emerged, and formal training for proctors and advocates became necessary in order to practice law in the reorganized church courts. The book demonstrates that many features that characterize legal advocacy today were already in place by 1250, as lawyers trained in Roman and canon law became professionals in every sense of the term. It also examines the centuries-long power struggle between local courts and the Christian church, secular rule and religious edict.

* https://chicago.universitypressscholarship.com/view/10.7208/...

If you read it, I have a question: I read two times already the (unsourced) assertion that the renewal of a court system in western europe was due to the crusades. The caliphate had a tribunal system that the crusaders imported back. Is it grounded in truth?

I have read it, but it is not short, and so I can't possibly remember all the details. That said I do not remember much/any mention of Islamic jurisprudence: it was more a renaissance of Roman law (see Code of Justinian and Corpus Juris Civilis) The first 1-2 chapters actually go into Roman law (and before), as that was used as the initial base. There's a thread of ancient law even in the present day:

* https://utpress.utexas.edu/books/perlman-ancient-greek-law-i...

From the little I know about Islamic jurisprudence, specifically through the works of Toby Huff,[1] the tribunals were more 'private' and the rulings were done more by something that we'd call arbitration, and 'case files' would remain in the judge's/arbitrator's possession.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toby_Huff

The original, from Tacitus's Annals:

About the same time Plautius Silvanus, the praetor, for unknown reasons, threw his wife Apronia out of a window. When summoned before the emperor by Lucius Apronius, his father-in-law, he replied incoherently, representing that he was in a sound sleep and consequently knew nothing, and that his wife had chosen to destroy herself. Without a moment's delay Tiberius went to the house and inspected the chamber, where were seen the marks of her struggling and of her forcible ejection. He reported this to the Senate, and as soon as judges had been appointed, Urgulania, the grandmother of Silvanus, sent her grandson a dagger. This was thought equivalent to a hint from the emperor, because of the known intimacy between Augusta and Urgulania. The accused tried the steel in vain, and then allowed his veins to be opened. Shortly afterwards Numantina, his former wife, was charged with having caused her husband's insanity by magical incantations and potions, but she was acquitted.

Bear in mind that this was written 80 years or so after the event, so it's at least third-hand.

Sometimes it was just an accident on the way to the forum...

https://crimereads.com/the-invention-of-murder-how-the-ancie...

But then, you still have quite large areas on this planet with a state and codified law, but de facto pre-state legal structures. So called failed states, tribal clan jurisdiction, gang, mafia and insurgent organisations that are or were the law in, for example, southern Italy, the IRA in northern Ireland back than or more 'lawless' slums on this planet like the favelas in south America. And so on.

There are reasons, it took some time, a few thousand years at least, for large parts of the population to realize that following abstract laws by everyone is an advantage and that more, how should I put it, federalist approaches can be insufficient. Human rights are an achievement not a given.

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