Sacrosanct
Sacrosanct (from the Latin adjective sacrosanctus , a compound of sacer and sanctus , German "inviolable, most holy") denotes the inviolability of a person who should be secured by an oath in the time of the Roman Republic and the principle .
Origin and development
Originally only the tribunes were sacrosanct. They were protected by an oath with which the plebeians undertook to punish an attack. The measure was initially directed against the patricians . Anyone who physically attacked a tribune could be killed without the killer having to fear revenge. Later, an attacker could be executed as a traitor . In practice, however, the importance of this principle of inviolability depended on whether the plebs kept their oath.
Since the Middle Republic, this principle developed into the legitimation basis of certain political measures. As a result of the equalization at the end of the class struggles and the recognition of the office by the patricians, the protective function and the obligation to revenge lost importance in practice. Inviolability could now be used as a defensive (e.g. through the right of objection ) or also as an offensive means (e.g. as a physical means of breaking resistance). The radical interpretation by the tribune Publius Popillius Laenas, which at the instigation of Marius in 86 BC Chr. The capital punishment for the fall from the Tarpeian rock at the tribune of the previous year, Sextus Lucilius, remained an exception.
Already under Caesar this inviolability was removed from the person of the tribune and could therefore be transferred to the ruler. After Augustus in 36 BC When sacrosanctus had been declared, this was part of the office and power of the princeps . By the end of the Roman Empire, this quasi-religious sacrosanct position went through a change. In the course of the Christianization of the population, the term was increasingly used for Christian institutions and ideas. The word took on the meaning sacred .
Modern meaning
In German, the word sacrosanct still has a similar meaning as it did in the Roman Empire. It denotes an inviolable or inviolable thing. It is used in the context of particularly important and indubitable matters, whereby the religious content is no longer in the foreground.
See also
- Sacrosanct , thrash metal band
Web links
literature
- Jochen Bleicken : The Roman People's Tribunate. Attempt to analyze its political function in Republican times . In: Chiron 1981, pp. 87-101.
- Bernhard Kübler: s. v. Sacrosanctum . In: RE Vol. 1A, 2, Col. 1684-1688.
- Wolfgang Kunkel with Roland Wittmann : State order and state practice of the Roman Republic. Second part. The magistrate . Munich 1995, ISBN 3-406-33827-5 (by Wittmann completed edition of the work left unfinished by Kunkel). P. 573 f.
- Lukas Thommen : The people's tribunate of the late Roman Republic , Stuttgart 1989 ISBN 3-515-05187-2 .