Delation

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Delation (from Latin delatio : "display", "denunciation") is a legal historical term in inheritance law for the accrual of an inheritance , especially for the time of the Roman Principate . Accordingly, it was for a conviction of a defendant whose inheritance among all those who under oath had testified his fault divided.

During the reign of Tiberius, Tacitus noticed a weakening of the institution of the delation: “Delators and their advertisements had already existed before, but now the delation has become a popular means of career advancement that (...) climbers unscrupulously exploited to gain favor of the Princeps and thus secure social advancement. "

Tacitus proves this in addition to the accusations against the knights Falanius and Rubrius in the case of Marcus Scribonius Libo Drusus in the year 16 AD, who in his opinion was accused by intrigues of high treason against Emperor Tiberius for self-interest . After the Libo's suicide , with which he wanted to escape the shame of conviction, the prosecutors ( delators ) divided the property of the Libo among themselves and, if they held the rank of senator , were even rewarded with an extraordinary praetur . Only Numerius Vibius Serenus , chief spokesman for the four prosecutors, who was already carrying out the praetur at the time the complaint was filed, went out without remuneration.

Tacitus then attacked Tiberius for not trying to curb the abuse of delation and the resulting climate of denunciations : “this serious calamity (...), as it crept in through Tiberius' tricks, as it was later pushed back , but in the end it flared up again and seized everything. ”However, Tiberius used the delation as an indispensable means of maintaining his rule.

literature

Individual evidence

  1. Angela Martina Müller: Suicide in the Latin Literature of the Imperial Era up to the end of the 1st century AD. Dissertation. University of Zurich, Zurich 2003, p. 200. (PDF; 1.99 MB)
  2. Tacitus, Annalen , 4, 29, 1 ff.
  3. Cornelius Tacitus: Annals. Book I, Chapter 73 ff., Goldmann, Munich 1978, ISBN 3-442-07574-2 , p. 55 ff.