Nota censoria

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Marcus Porcius Cato the Elder noted several knights and senators in his career as censor for violations of custom

In the Roman Republic , the nota censoria referred to a moral judicial sanction that could only be imposed on the Roman citizen by the censors during the cyclically recurring census ( census populi ) on the Field of Mars . A separate census ( recensio equitum ) was carried out on the forum for the knights ( equites ) . The punitive measure was not a legal consequence of a previous public prosecution of the person concerned, but an autonomous, administrative act with a disciplinary reprimand. The aim of the moral court was to remove such persons from offices, committees, and classes, and to exclude them from privileges, who had proven to be unworthy because of their crimes or their behavior, which was free from punishment but was morally reprehensible. Due to the different social legal status, the addressees of a nota censoria could only ever be free male citizens and not women .

Legal character

The legal character of the nota censoria was an administrative, but not a judicial, sovereign act. The basis for authorization was that from 318 BC. Dated lex Ovinia , which gave the censors the right to appoint the members of the Senate ( lectio senatus ). This administrative act was subsequently applied to the equestrian class and to the rest of the middle class.

It was irrelevant whether criminal or private proceedings were pending or already concluded, because the nota censoria did not conflict with criminal or civil court convictions or acquittals. In their exercise of moral supervision ( regimen morum ), the censors were fundamentally independent of the decisions of the ordinary judiciary. In the event of a previous criminal conviction, you could, at your own discretion, refrain from additional disciplinary measures. In the opposite constellation, the censors were able to use the nota censoria regardless of a judicial acquittal . Capital judgments were excluded from this free interpretation of the law, as the convicted person was either executed or previously escaped into exile and thus no longer existed for the census.

The limits of the burdensome official act consisted on the one hand in the fact that the nota censoria had to be carried by both censors in the same way, and on the other hand in the not necessarily unlimited duration of the legal intervention. Therefore, it was generally possible that the de-rating list entry in the following census could be deleted by the new censors and that the person concerned could be put back into his status quo ante . So there was a certain compensation with regard to the concrete danger that the nota censoria could be misused by the high magistrates , consciously or unconsciously, for selfish motives or for partisan purposes.

Procedure

The indictment declaimed in front of the assembled citizens during the census explained the alleged moral misconduct ( contra bonos mores ) or the criminal act of the person appealed by name.

If the underlying facts were obvious and could not be justified by the accused, then the penalty could be imposed without a preliminary investigation (moral cognition).

The facts, which were reported to the censors by a third party and accepted, triggered an adversarial hearing. In this streamlined hearing, which was limited to the collection of evidence (summary cognition), the defendant was heard by the censors. In principle, the defendant did not have a right to legal counsel, as is usual in criminal proceedings. The possibilities of defense were also restricted by the low level of approval of any exonerating witnesses.

If the accused could not plausibly refute the dishonorable charge ( probrum ) before the moral court ( iudicium de moribus ) ( tertium non datur ), according to the agreement of the censors, the corresponding measure was pronounced in the following census, noted in the census list ( nota ) and thus legally binding.

Facts

The offenses of the nota censoria were acts and omissions committed by a person in their capacity as a public official or a private individual. The boundaries between public and private misconduct were fluid, so that misconduct often affected both branches. Whether public interest interests were affected or violated ultimately depended on individual decisions by the censors.

Actions ( probris ), which, according to the interpretation of the censors, violate the custom of the ancestors and thus could trigger reprisals, are listed below as an example:

  1. Dishonorable behavior and disloyalty of the soldier. After the Battle of Cannae , 400 knights had considered fleeing Italy, but ultimately failed to do so.
  2. Conscientious objection to military service through failure to report to the draft. 2000 citizens withdrew from military service without sufficient justification.
  3. Abuse of office: such as the private execution of a convicted of capital crimes outside of the jurisdiction; also: killing of a stranger seeking refuge ( peregrinus ) for pure amusement. There was no legal sanction for this act as it was not reported.
  4. Use of official authority to curtail competencies, such as shortening the term of office of the censors or repealing a respected law ( Lex Licinia sumptuaria ).
  5. Intentional misinterpretation ( falsum ) of the heavenly signs. The auspices were deliberately judged negatively by a tribune in order to thwart a military project.
  6. Oath breaking or flimsy evasion of promises made. The soldiers who had not kept the sworn promise of return to captivity to the enemy were noted.
  7. Abuse of divorce law. A senator was noted for arbitrarily dismissing his wife.
  8. Excessive luxury goods possession and lavish lifestyle.
  9. Disrespect for officials. A knight who was accused of the miserable condition of the state horse entrusted to him justified himself with an irrelevant answer.
  10. Idleness and the associated neglect of agricultural goods.

Legal consequences

In the case of complained knights, the most serious consequences were the withdrawal of the state riding horse ( adimere equum ), the removal from its tribal and thus expulsion from the equestrian centuria as well as a conversion into the unfavorable tax class of the aerarians . In the worst case, the penalties could be combined, otherwise they could be imposed individually. Lighter offenses could be punished with a fine ( multa, "the mult") or with the suspension of state subsidies, such as the annual feed money for the state horse ( aes hordearium ). The same consequences could affect the Senator, whereby he could also be struck off the Senate list.

The common citizen, when he was not employed in the army and was therefore not subject to any supervision, withdrew more and more from the focus of censorship and thus moral control as the republic progressed and territorial expansion. As a rule, the censors only became active when it was a matter of serious cases such as the eviction of military service that occurred in times of crisis or when they were notified of a significant individual case. The censor sanctions were limited here to fines, implementation in the most unfavorable tax bracket and the deterioration of the voting rights through the transfer from a rural to an urban tribe. The total loss of the right to vote through the demotion to a semi-citizen, which was documented with an entry in the list of citizens not entitled to vote ( tabulae caeritium ), was temporarily possible. With the abolition of the tributum in 169 BC The legal consequence of increased taxation ceased to exist for everyone.

Roman Imperial Era

Rider in the garb of a Roman Eques

In the final phase of the republic, the powers of the censors were given in 59 BC. Sensitively diminished by a plebiscite. The officials could in the census 55 BC. BC no longer act of their own accord against the dishonorable citizen, with which the number of quotations decreased. Five years later, in the last census of the republic, the restriction had been lifted by consular law. Here the censor at the time, Appius Claudius Pulcher , used his power of attorney for political reasons by assigning the nota censoria to numerous senators and knights .

With Augustus , the 22 BC Chr. Had tried in vain to restore the office of the censors and thus the census, the knight pattern ( recognitio equitum ) that had been missing for decades was renewed. This seems to have been combined with the annual equestrian parade , the transvectio equitum , held on July 15th . In this parade, the participants rode past the emperor on their horses . Anyone who, in the opinion of the emperor or someone specifically authorized for this purpose, required instruction was called in and reprimanded accordingly based on the occasion. Here Augustus intended mostly to an inconsequential warning ( admonitio have restricted). This rebuke was not pronounced publicly, but rather brought to the attention of the addressee in a confidential manner by means of a written note on a tablet.

While the equestrian parade ( transvectio equitum ) was held until the end of the 4th century, a knight pattern in the true sense can be proven for the last time under Vespasian .

literature

Remarks

  1. ^ Theodor Mommsen : Roman State Law. 1877 (= S. Hirzel: Handbook of Roman Antiquities . Volume 2, 1st section, 1877, p. 377 ff.) (Online) .
  2. ↑ Valerius Maximus , Facta et dicta memorabilia 2, 9, 7-8 (online) .
  3. ^ Livius , Ab Urbe Condita 24, 18, 7 ff. (Online) .
  4. ↑ Cicero , Cato maior de senectute 12, 42 (online) ; Livius, Ab Urbe Condita 39, 42, 5 ff. (Online) .
  5. ^ Livius, Ab Urbe Condita 4, 24, 7 (online) .
  6. ↑ Valerius Maximus, Facta et dicta memorabilia 2, 9, 5 (online) .
  7. ↑ Cicero, De divinatione 1, 16, 29 (online) .
  8. ↑ Cicero, De officiis 3, 32, 113-115 (online) .
  9. ↑ Valerius Maximus, Facta et dicta memorabilia 2, 9, 2 (online) .
  10. ^ Aulus Gellius , Noctes Atticae 4, 8, 1-8 (online) .
  11. ↑ Aulus Gellius, Noctes Atticae 4, 20, 11 (online) .
  12. ↑ Aulus Gellius, Noctes Atticae 4, 12, 1 (online) .
  13. ^ Cassius Dio , Römische Geschichte 40, 57, 3 (online) .
  14. ^ Cassius Dio, Römische Geschichte , 40, 63, 2 ff. (Online) .
  15. ↑ Suetonius , Augustus , 38, 3 (online)
  16. ^ Suetonius, Augustus 39, 1 (online) .
  17. ↑ Ulpian , Digest 2, 4, 1, 2.
  18. ^ Suetonius, Vespasian 9, 2 (online) .