The life of a lawyer in the late Roman republic
thecollector.com
thecollector.com
"Lawyers" in Ancient Rome were generally patricians who owed assistance to their cliens. There were no formal schools of law, and the law in Republican Rome was a changeable and largely customary thing, with a considerable religious component. What's more, from 204 BC onwards, these "lawyers" were legally barred from charging for their services, thanks to the Lex Cincia -- but even before, and well after, the passing of that law, it was considered beneath one's dignity to charge for legal counsel and advice.
In short, it wasn't a profession. Roman patricians generally knew the customs of Rome, and were capable of advising their vassals, retainers, and various plebians on points of law which reflected those customs. (Where the law was codified, it was extremely clear.) Some of these patrician-lawyers were orators and made pleadings before the court -- most did not, and in most cases pleadings were made directly by the parties involved.
Also: In Republican Rome, Judges (judex) were private arbitrators. They were not officials.
So it was what we'd call a customary and amateur legal system.
I'd hesitate to call it real power as well. You could not just go against someone of let's say senatorial class or god forbid, the Emperor himself, without substantial (military) backing and/or being an untouchable demi-god yourself.
Today you can take the government itself to court and actually win.
There is to my knowledge no historical precedent for the amount of practical power the common citizenry has over the powerful classes today.
Would I prefer to live now than 2000 years ago? Certainly. Is that because of today's systems of governance, rather than today's technology? No.
It's a fantasy to believe the ruling class are not in an eternal struggle to take more, or that they have ever only restrained themselves due to the threat of revolt.
> I'd hesitate to call it real power as well. You could not just go against someone of let's say senatorial class or god forbid, the Emperor himself, without substantial (military) backing and/or being an untouchable demi-god yourself.
I wouldn't hesitate to call it real power. You're trying to make it an all or nothing thing, but it's not. There's a lot of power between cockroach and omnipotent.
> Today you can take the government itself to court and actually win.
And what does "winning" mean? It means the government decides that it must take some money from other citizens and give it to you.
It can also mean countless other things. Like that government has to stop excessive surveillance. Cannot take your home away to build a road. Or has to lift a regulation for your buisness, ...
Not every government activity is money redistribution.
You can change a few roads around from time to time, resulting in the government taking more of your money to build road that takes a longer route so you and your fellow plebs have to commute 10 minutes longer. That's not the "real" power previous poster was talking about, going up against the ruling class.
And the question was, if it is possible for a lowly citizen today, to do anything against the all powerful leviathan. And yes, you can. And I would argue, easier than in the roman empire. But easy? Surely not.
Strange.
> If not, do you think, there is anything positive, the government is doing?
Yes.
> And the question was, if it is possible for a lowly citizen today, to do anything against the all powerful leviathan. And yes, you can. And I would argue, easier than in the roman empire. But easy? Surely not.
I can't understand what you mean.
You are throwing the separate branches of government on the same pile, which I think is unfair to say the least.
The judicial branch tells the executive branch to stop or adjust whatever it is doing. The executive branch is not happy about this, but if it wants to survive it needs to listen or at the very least project the illusion that it is listening in some way shape or form. We haven't touched the legislative branch here which is also a force to be reckoned with.
All these branches are filled to the brim with people of various background and motivations. They might not be happy about eachother, but they are stuck with it.
I don't know about American politics, but these branches are pretty well separated in the Netherlands. Maybe not as much as we'd like, but I'm hard-pressed to call it anything but a clear improvement over the past.
I promise you your government does not give the slightest shit if it forces itself to force its citizens to pay more taxes on food and energy. Funny that they have people believing that is a "win" -- socialize the cost of climate change to the commoners. Have you not noticed that it has become fashionable for governments to apologize and promise atonement for such things? Have you ever wondered why that is? It's not because they are looking to take down the banks or the petroleum cartels or the billionaires or whatever. It's because government ~= people. They are accepting blame on your behalf to shield their friends and owners from the blame they deserve.
Wake me up when they dismantle the carbon profiteers and seize their profits and the profits of their profits from the past century or so. Then the war profiteers, and so on.
I get it, I really do and I am biased as well so your underlying points may just as well be 1000% correct. It’s just not something I can productively engage with.
Where?
> You then build on top of these simplifications in the most general of terms in an attempt to strengthen your ideas about power and how it is distributed.
How exactly did I do that?
Pretty weak response to my post tbh. I get it though, it hurts to realize the benevolent and omnipotent protector and provider you are subservient to is anything but. Lashing out is not an unusual response.
That is how to conflate branches of government. IMO it also is an unfair characterization of the underlying complexity of the situation.
I love it when you disagree, because I believe lively civic debate is very important. It’s just hard for me to become concrete when we get stuck in generalities about “the elite” and “those in power” without precision about what it is exactly that is the problem.
I also recognize my bias, because I am actually a (small) part of this omnipotent dangerous government filled with “others” you hate so much so I think we need to agree to disagree on just about everything.
It's the government though. The point from the start was that the judicial branch is part of government control. You are the one confused if you don't understand that.
> IMO it also is an unfair characterization of the underlying complexity of the situation.
IMO it isn't.
> I love it when you disagree, because I believe lively civic debate is very important. It’s just hard for me to become concrete when we get stuck in generalities about “the elite” and “those in power” without precision about what it is exactly that is the problem.
And yet you seem to know that the government is the solution to them all apparently without knowing what they are.
> I also recognize my bias, because I am actually a (small) part of this omnipotent dangerous government filled with “others” you hate so much so I think we need to agree to disagree on just about everything.
I think you're angrily lashing out at strawmen of your own making because it has become difficult for you to reconcile the scary new ideas in this conversation. But I do find it very interesting how wildly irrational and angry governments and bureaucrats become at the suggestion that they should be held to account for their actions, or that anything they do could be questioned or disagreed with, and by those "hateful commoners" of all people!
Yet fun as it was, I will now cease my demented rage, but not before profusely apologizing for my irrational and unforgivable lashing out.
Also, sorry HN. I have indulged forces here that shouldn’t be. I thought it would be interesting, but that is.. doubtful in hindsight.
I notice a lot of dirty corrupt western politicians have started a lot of unpopular wars and "interventions" that have killed countless thousands of people and stolen trillions of dollars from their citizens since WWII, and all have escaped justice for it. Worse yet, they have the gall to blame victims of their crimes and force them to bear the consequences, "we meddled and caused wars and destabilization, and therefore we (read: you) need to shoulder burden of the consequences and 'help' more". That's not winning. Avenues of hanged war criminals would be winning.
The hockey-stick-like growth in technology, quality-of-life, and economic activity generally coinciding with the rise of modern market economics and liberal democracy suggests you might not be able to have one without the other.
That seems like it simplifies a few things like national security, civic safety of any kind, health care, migration, education. I can see a lot of arrows pointing towards centralization of power and for good reasons.
Not saying I'm happy about it, but I really, really struggle to imagine a solution for it that is as stable.
Many "liberal western democracy" governments do very badly and and make ruinously expensive decisions that go against the interest and will of the citizens on some or all of those things.
You have made a sport out of oversimplifying complicated matters before attacking them unfairly. These “governments” you are so fond of attacking are the best we can do in the present and they require enormous, continuous support from regular civilians. It behooves us all to be mindful of this.
These “bureaucrats, politicians, judges, police, and other officials” are normal people, probably including members of your family. The enemy you are envisioning might actually exist, but I believe you are pointing your sword(s) in the wrong direction.
Non sequitur. One does not have to contrast something with something else to make a statement about it.
> You have made a sport out of oversimplifying complicated matters before attacking them unfairly.
Strange how fragile a lot of people are about daring to attack the government they are subservient to. I disagree, in fact I see you have made a sport out of oversimplifying complicated matters to defend them unquestioningly.
> These “governments” you are so fond of attacking are the best we can do in the present and they require enormous, continuous support from regular civilians. It behooves us all to be mindful of this.
That's just some declaration you've made. You've asserted it. And I disagree. It behooves us all to be mindful of government's corruption, incompetence, and growing dangerous power and greed.
> These “bureaucrats, politicians, judges, police, and other officials” are normal people, probably including members of your family. The enemy you are envisioning might actually exist, but I believe you are pointing your sword(s) in the wrong direction.
The fact you've equated holding people to account for their actions as being their enemy is telling.
You might be right, actually. Common bias eh? But I suggest we look at it practically.
> Would I prefer to live now than 2000 years ago? Certainly. Is that because of today's systems of governance, rather than today's technology? No.
How do you suppose that technology came about? I don't wish to trivialize this, but I'm convinced systems of government and levels of technology have a very strong connection. Maybe we just need to agree to disagree on that.
> It's a fantasy to believe the ruling class are not in an eternal struggle to take more, or that they have ever only restrained themselves due to the threat of revolt.
I did not proclaim otherwise. Elite assholes are exactly the same. It's just that they are less capable of actualizing it now. In my experience they lack the privileges they used to have. Sure, they are rich and fuck you over, but that doesn't come close to what they were able to do in the past. I am only interested in results, nothing else. Human souls are as murky as they ever were and maybe it's worse now. I don't know about that.
> You're trying to make it an all or nothing thing, but it's not.
I'm sorry, maybe I did come across like that indeed. I meant to imply that whatever is between cockroach and omnipotent, it is more now, not less. Cockroaches these days have way more power than they ever did.
> And what does "winning" mean?
It's not just money. This could also mean forcing them to change course. We had something called "Urgenda" that took our gov to court (and won). In this case our government was blamed for doing too little about climate change and they had to adapt. There were also cases that for example challenged governmental oversight.
By people, inventors, creatives, entrepreneurs, explorers. Certainly not government or bureaucracy. Many of the most incredible inventions, discoveries, and creative works came about under governments that were not free or democratic.
I'm sure some amount of government is needed for a society to keep running. I have seen no evidence that it is what gives rise to technology and production rather than the other way around, or that bigger, costlier, more complicated, and more imposing is always better.
[snip]
> It's not just money. This could also mean forcing them to change course. We had something called "Urgenda" that took our gov to court (and won). In this case our government was blamed for doing too little about climate change and they had to adapt. There were also cases that for example challenged governmental oversight.
These are trifles. Corporations are all "on board" with climate change now. Petroleum profiteers have ESG scores. As far as the government is concerned, "doing more about climate change" means nothing for the people involved beyond making the commoners pay more for their food and energy.
If you lived in Rome this time 2000 years ago, well, you'd be going through a period of relative stability (Tiberius was, well, a bit odd, but things were mostly stable enough), but just coming off about a century of civil war, and looking at, well, interesting times in 2038. And, post the end of the republic, that stretch from start of Augustus to end of Tiberius was about as good as it got.
Even ignoring the civil rights issues (unless you were (a) a man and (b) pretty wealthy you were an unperson; while Rome had a concept of citizenship some citizens were very much more citizen than others) it was just very messy relative to just about any developed country today. Your chances of being collateral damage in a civil war at some point in your lifetime would be, well, quite high.
Even if you assume wealthy man, btw, don't think you're off the hook. In fact, in the period covered in the article that might even put you in more jeopardy than a normal person. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proscription#Sulla's_dictators... - have the wrong politics, or even just the wrong friends, and you might end up on the extrajudicial murder list. Cicero, one of the lawyers mentioned in the article, died this way.
If you were a rich aristocrat it’s likely that you lived under a constant threat of being killed during one of his “stalinist” style purges. Which to be fair wasn’t that odd even the “good” emperors like Claudius engaged in stuff like that.
Rule of law wasn’t much of a thing during the imperial period.
To be fair ancient Athens even elected most public official using a lottery system so that the rich/powerful would be able to monopolize the power because they had time/money to campaign and extensive client networks.
Multiple other societies had they "eat the rich" moments as well it's just the it wasn't sustainable, almost immediately after the last ruling class was removed a new one (just as corrupt) arose.
Threads like this always make it painfully obvious how logically-minded and clever tech folks (HN crowd) are really clueless about anything outside their area of expertise.
"Over-confident"
"solution"
This is just too much, it's satire right? Really good if it is. Nothing more fragile and angry than an "expert" who has their proclamations challenged, or an indoctrinated follower who is threatened with scary opinions.
The Roman legal system was extremely arbitrary and highly dysfunctional by modern standard. Why transporting some random feature of it (which contributed to it being such) to the modern world would ever be a good idea?
> revert that kind of power to its citizens.
It think it’s the inverse and would significantly decrease the “power” a random person has due to obvious reasons.
> fragile and angry
I’m neither angry or fragile. Why would you even use these words? I just shared my observation, that’s it.
> indoctrinated
That generally comments which include this word tend to be at least mildly deranged is another thing I noticed here as well.
However seeing personal insults everywhere and feeling the need to respond in kind seems rather tiresome.
> solutions
What's more tiresome is people spouting rambling and incoherent "critiques" of others which they are incapable of substantiating due to their dishonesty and/or other mental deficiencies.
Being so angry at random people on the internet is not good for you..
A weak, dishonest back-down after getting called out on being unable to substantiate your blathering. Pathetic.
But just to clarify a bit: I’m not “backing down” from anything I said.
Unfortunately it’s just hard tell what exactly I’m supposed to substantiate because your diatribes are a bit too incoherent.. and it’s quite hard to comprehend what are you trying to say.
I would advise you to tone do the amount of “personal” insults when trying to communicate with other people.
They really obscure your actual points (assuming they exist?) and they they aren’t doing much anyway since I still can’t really tell whether you’re talking to me or somebody else.
Also I generally find that insults are most effective when used sparingly or in a subtle backhanded manner.
Officially, yes. In practice orators were often rewarded with bequests, political favors, or "loans" that would never be called in (Cicero received one from Sulla, for instance).
Sounds like the modern upper middle class nepo parents...
To be honest I skim the article don’t have time to read a whole history book on Ancient Roman law—but I’m definitely interested in Ancient Rome.
But I mean this is hacker news if you want history news go somewhere else.
I'm also uncertain of what, aside from relevance, makes political/social commentary "cheap" as opposed to "expensive", or why the latter would be more desirable.
Perhaps it's based on a misguided idea that commentary must be tied in scholarship to be worthy of utterance (and that such "expensive" commentary is not just a ritualized and impotent form of social commentary). Or that history moves because of such "expensive" commentary, as opposed because of the "cheap" opinions and actions of puny laymen.
Human cultures can be very different and alien, which is especially hard to really wrap your head around when you've only experienced your own WEIRD one.
It's not, it never was, and I don't mean to say that by that they're in a "prior" stage of development than how our societies have turned out, because these processes aren't linear, but a couple of centuries ago no polity or region was a nation-state, including the ones we live in, and despite the relative recency of that we can't understand how a "country" may not be what we imagine a country to be like, when presented with an example right now.
Engaging to the past "on it’s own terms" is noble.
But refusing or failing to find patterns and analogies (lest they not be "perfect"), and to engage with the past as a store of experience to learn from, and leverage the past to inform your understanding of the present, renders the whole point of studying the past a moot endeavor.
If you read roman histories, it is full of exceptions from the law that were based on little more than mob opinion. Rules such as term limits, pay or inheritance were regularly bypassed by high-profile people if they could get the plebs into the streets.
See: https://www.britannica.com/topic/Roman-legal-procedure
> After the issues were delineated and sureties set, both parties agreed upon a judex, who was neither a lawyer nor a magistrate but a prominent layman, to try the case. The proceedings before the judex were more informal: advocates spoke and gave evidence, and witnesses often appeared. The judex made a decision but had no power to execute it. If the defendant refused to pay the fine or make restitution within a certain period of time, he could be brought by force to the magistrate. Then his property could be seized, or he could be made slave to the plaintiff to work off the debt or property claim.
ius privatum, which includes all of what we would call civil law but also most crimes against individuals. The ius publicum mostly concerned crimes against the state: counterfeiting, embezzlement, treason, etc.
Certainly by the late republic I'm not sure that it's true they were generally patricians? They were generally upper-class, certainly, often senatorial-class, but by then a lot of them (Cicero, say) would have been plebeians.
> [gifts to] blood relatives, up to the fifth degree, were excepted,
Did that include for lawyers or only the other part of the law? Relatives to the 5th degree could be a lot of paying people per lawyer.
By that point Rome was a full on plutocracy and most senators/nobles weren't patricians. Probably one the most famous Roman "lawyer" Cicero was not only a plebian but a complete no-name from a provincial town (and most famous Romans from his time like Cato, Pompey, Brutus, Mark Anthony, Octavian were all plebian while Ceasar, Lepidus and Metellus Scipio were patrician) .
Anyway, at her university library she got me a book on Cicero. I remember at one point, Cicero in the book travels around asia minor or somewhere trying to collect evidence to make the case for a client. However, he comes to the conclusion later on that facts and evidence don't really matter so much, as creating a compelling narrative.
I was obsessed with Rome (thanks to my high school Latin class) and the name Cicero seemed so cool and elegant to me.
I remember I'd stay up all night reading it. But I was such an idiot. At the break of dawn, I'd throw seeds at passersby beneath the window (high window) and yell I AM ELZIO REX OF THE BRITTTOOOONNSSS until my sister yelled at me to stop.
* https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/M/bo562094...
* https://utpress.utexas.edu/9781477315217/
* Review: https://bmcr.brynmawr.edu/2018/2018.10.49/
Did you know that one of the largest banks in Athens was owned / run by two slaves?
> Edward E. Cohen returns to the issue of slave-owned businesses previously addressed in his work on Athenian banking, reasserting his view that enslaved business owners were liable for their own debts. Through comparison with the Roman system, he argues that the Athenian conventions of credit worked alongside this legal liability.
IIRC, the slaves incorporated the bank, and then the bank (as a legal entity) paid the master of said slaves for the services of the slaves through a leasing arrangement.
I won’t dissuade you from reading (listening) to Gibbon as he is something of a literary classic, but you must always be aware that Gibbon was writing two centuries ago and had his own ideological ax to grind. Historians today, drawing on a wider range of sources than Gibbon had access to, ascribe many developments in Roman history to very different factors than Gibbon claimed.
In fact, it is advisable to read several more recent works on Roman history first, so that you are then reading Gibbon purely as a literary classic and not as any authoritative source.
Alternatively, you can get books about specific periods, like say late republic, and read those in sequence. But that takes more time.
Finally, and this is my preferred approach, get things written by Romans. Yes, they were biased too, and often quite obviously. But at least they didn't have stake in modern society and politics. As long as you pay notice to fact that they are mostly recording either hearsay, or propaganda, you should be fine. In that course I would recommend Twelve Caesars by Suetonius (hearsay) and Commentarii de Bello Gallico by Caesar (propaganda).
It's not always true, but it gives you a good idea of how they were thinking, what was their morality like and their values.
I think that's the wrong way around. Start with reading the canon, and then delve into its refinements (schools get that all twisted too, only introducing cannon at the graduate level). Reading Gibbon will give you a deep appreciation of his influence. In the process, you'll get a genuine step closer to experience the Enlightenment (imagine yourself in your salon, by candlelight, a gaggle of kids playing in the room next to you) as well.
_Especially_ so if you are reading out of a dilettante interest, rather than professionally.
That's all well and good, but OP seems to be interested in learning about Roman history, not 18th century English historiography. And for those purposes Gibbon is extremely unreliable.
I've read Gibbon (the abridged version). How would you describe the axe he was grinding?
Also, in England in Gibbon’s day there was very little knowledge of or interest in Byzantium. That half of the empire lasted another thousand years in spite of a remarkably tight connection between church and state. Only the Western Empire fell in AD 496.