Crimen incesti (sacred law)

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Crimen incesti defined ritual impurity in Roman sacred law and contained a religious capital crime, which a vestal virgin in particular committed by violating the vow of chastity.

In Roman civil law , the legal norm of the crimen incesti subsumed the sexual act between blood relatives, which was prosecuted in a private criminal case and heard before a comitial court - later before an imperial jury.

Sacred crime, on the other hand, fell within the law enforcement competence of the pontifex maximus , who, as the highest-ranking priest, was in charge of supervision and jurisdiction over the vestals. The trial was held before a college of priests presided over by the high priest. From Augustus onwards, this function was taken over by the respective princeps during the entire Roman Empire .

Sacred proceedings

The trial was held in the Regia , the official building of the college of priests, in a meeting of the pontifices chaired by the pontifex maximus . After taking evidence and hearing witnesses, the vestal virgin was given the opportunity to raise objections that she could raise to exonerate her. The chairman made the judgment taking into account the individual interpretation and the legal assessment of the advisory pontifical college.

Offense

The sacred crimen incesti , a violation of the sworn sexual abstinence, was a real special offense . The offense could only be fulfilled by a person who belonged to the female priesthood of the Vestals. In the case of complicity, however, no special characteristics were assumed in the sexual partner.

Legal consequence

The vestal virgin who had been found guilty was taken to her place of execution in a procession, attended by the public, to be buried alive . There, while the high priest was probably saying a prayer, perhaps also a spell, she had to descend into a prepared underground passage that was equipped with a certain amount of food and an oil lamp. Then the entrance to the grave was buried and locked.

Designated in the sources accused accomplices that even by their contribution to the act, namely the statutory rape of a priestess, outside the public law had set and therefore any legal protection were deprived were behind on the Comitium with a flagrum by the Pontifex maximus to death scourged .

Intent to sanction under sacred law

Contrary to a repressive sanction in the Roman civil process, the walling of a vestal virgin did not aim to punish the person with his execution. The rather preventive intention of the measure was to eliminate the sacred outrage - which was perceived as a prodigium , i.e. a bad omen - in order to restore the religious legal peace and to ward off further damage to the community, the res publica .

In contrast to public law, the final legal remedy of provocation was consequently ruled out for the delinquents in sacred law , because with a living, tainted Vestal Virgin the sacred damage to the Roman community would have continued.

literature

  • Jan-Wilhelm Beck : The Licinianus scandal and the crimen incesti (Pliny epist. 4,11). In: Göttingen Forum for Classical Studies. Volume 15, 2012, pp. 129–152 ( PDF ).
  • Joachim Ermann: Research on Roman Law; Criminal trial, public interest and private prosecution: Investigations into the criminal law of the Roman Republic , Böhlau Verlag, Cologne, Weimar, Berlin, 1999, ISBN 3-412-08299-6 , Der Bona Dea Scandal, pp. 85–96.
  • Gerhard Schrot : Incestus 1. In: The Little Pauly (KlP). Volume 2, Stuttgart 1967, column 1386.