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Cicero's Law: Rethinking Roman Law of the Late Republic

Online ISBN:
9781474426763
Print ISBN:
9781474408820
Publisher:
Edinburgh University Press
Book

Cicero's Law: Rethinking Roman Law of the Late Republic

Paul J. du Plessis (ed.)
Paul J. du Plessis
(ed.)
University of Edinburgh
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Published online:
18 January 2018
Published in print:
1 October 2016
Online ISBN:
9781474426763
Print ISBN:
9781474408820
Publisher:
Edinburgh University Press

Abstract

Why did Roman prosecutors typically accuse the defendant of multiple crimina, when in most standing criminal courts the punishment imposed on a guilty defendant was the same (typically “capital,” that is, a kind of exile), no matter how many charges were proven? The answer lies not in a failure to distinguish between legal charges leveled at the defendant and defamation of his character, but rather in a rhetorical strategy that made sense in light of what was legally necessary to obtain a conviction. The greater the number of charges, the more likely the jurors would be persuaded that the defendant had in some way violated the statute according to which the trial was being conducted. It is true that prosecutors typically argued that the defendant’s prior conduct made it plausible that he had committed the crimes with which he was charged, but in a way that, as much as possible, made his guilt on these particular charges seem likely, and defense patroni attempted to undermine the charges and the character defamation. This answer to the apparent contradiction between multiple charges and unitary punishment favors a moderate formalism over legal realism as the way to interpret Roman criminal trials.

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