Lex Petronia

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The lex Petronia , also known as lex Petronia de servis or just lex de servis , was a Roman law from the 1st century AD that forbade the sale of slaves for the purpose of hunting animals without a judicial judgment .

content

post legem Petroniam et senatusconsulta ad eam legem pertinentia, dominis potestas ablata est ad bestias depugnandas suo arbitrio servos tradere : oblato tamen iudici servo, si iusta sit domini querella, sic poenae tradetur.
"According to the Lex Petronia and the Senate resolutions passed on the same law, the masters were deprived of the power to surrender their slaves at will to fight the wild animals. But if the slave was presented to the judge and the master's complaint was fair, he may be handed over to punishment. "

purpose

a) The animal fight had to be preceded by a judicial judgment: "Slaves were not allowed to fight with beasts without a judicial judgment."

b) The law forbade "the sale of slaves for animal baiting without a judicial decision."

c) "This law should soften the lot of the slaves and prevent that releases on one whim or another [...] from rampant."

Date of origin and author

As the name shows, it is a law that was introduced into the Senate by a Petronius (probably a consul or tribune of the people). However, which of the various consuls of this name was the originator is controversial.

For a long time it was assumed that Publius Petronius, known for his gentleness, was the author. This was indicated in particular by the lex Iunia Norbana , which was drawn up shortly before his consulate in 19 , which granted released slaves under certain circumstances limited Latin citizenship and the lex Iunia Petronia, which was decided under his aegis and stipulated that when making decisions about the question of whether a person Be a slave or not, equality of votes was enough for freedom.

Others consider the lex Petronia de servis to be a "popular resolution from the time of Augustus or Tiberius."

A current reference to the year 57 is also conceivable, in which the governors of Asia , Lycia and Cilicia were charged with serious crimes. Nero passed a law forbidding the procurators in the provinces to organize fencing games or even animal baiting because these regularly lead to creeping in favor and massive blackmail. In this context, Aulus Petronius Lurco , suffect consul of the year 58, should be considered as contributing person.

But there is some evidence that the law should be linked to the sensational mass execution of the slaves of Pedanius Secundus , who was murdered in 61 . Bagnani interpreted the lex Petronia as an extremely liberal reaction to this very restrictive measure, since the law had massively interfered with the otherwise inalienable right of the Roman master to own his slaves. But it is also conceivable that the particularly strict handling of the old laws tried to curb the increasingly rampant liberalization.

As possible authors of the law in the closer environment of the slave mass killing of 61 come into question:

Bagnani claimed that the law could not have been in force when Titus Petronius wrote in his Satyricon in the early or mid-1960s that Glykon had brought his cashier "to the wild beasts" ( dispensatorem ad bestias dedit , Petron 45.8) and derived extensive chronological conclusions from this for the date of origin of the literary work. This conclusion is untenable for a number of reasons. It cannot be ruled out that the law was not introduced much later, e.g. B. by Marcus Petronius Umbrinus , the suffect consul of the year 81.

literature

  • Otto Karlowa : Roman legal history. Vol. I (Leipzig, 1885) 620f.
  • Rudolf Hanslik in: RE XIX (1938) Sp. 1199
  • Gilbert Bagnani Arbiter of Elegance. A Study of the Life & Works of C. Petronius. (= Phoenix Suppl. II), (Toronto, 1954) 14-24.
  • R. Browning: 'Petronius' (Review of G. Bagnani, Arbiter of Elegance (1954)), in: Classical Review 70 (NS 6) (1956) 45-47
  • Kenneth FC Rose The Date and Author of the Satyricon. Leiden, 1971
  • Liselot Huchthausen (ed.): Roman law in one volume. Berlin u. Weimar, 1983.
  • Volker Ebersbach (ed.): Titus Petronius Arbiter. Satyr stories. Leipzig, 1984.

Remarks

  1. ↑ Latin text from: A Latin Dictionary . Founded on Andrews' edition of Freund's Latin dictionary. revised, enlarged, and in great part rewritten by. Charlton T. Lewis, Ph.D. and. Charles Short, LL.D. Oxford. Clarendon Press. 1879.
  2. ^ Digest 48, 8, 11 (2), acc. Huchthausen (1983) 263, cf. Dig. 40th, 1.24.
  3. ^ Hanslik in: RE XIX Sp. 1199.
  4. ↑ Huchthausen (1983) 452.
  5. ↑ Ebersbach (1984) 228.
  6. ↑ A tribune by the name of Petronius is not known
  7. ↑ cf. RE XIX, col. 1199.
  8. ↑ Huchthausen (1983) 452.
  9. ↑ Tacitus, Annalen 13, 31f.
  10. ↑ Cf. Tacitus, Annalen 14, 42–45.
  11. ↑ G. Bagnani (1954) 14-24.
  12. ↑ Cf. in particular the beginning of the Senate speech by Gaius Cassius (Tacitus, Annalen 14, 43), in which the latter refers to the previous liberalizations before calling for the toughest crackdown.
  13. ↑ R. Browning (1956) 45f., Cf. on the chronological discussion of the lex Petronia in connection with the Satyricon in particular KFC Rose (Leiden, 1971), pp. 34-37.