The law of majestas, or ''lex maiestatis'', encompasses several ancient Roman laws (''leges maiestatis'') throughout the Republican and Imperial periods dealing with crimes against the Roman people, state, or Emperor.
Description
In
Roman law
Roman law is the law, legal system of ancient Rome, including the legal developments spanning over a thousand years of jurisprudence, from the Twelve Tables (c. 449 BC), to the ''Corpus Juris Civilis'' (AD 529) ordered by Eastern Roman emperor J ...
, the offences originally falling under the head of
treason
Treason is the crime of attacking a state authority to which one owes allegiance. This typically includes acts such as participating in a war against one's native country, attempting to overthrow its government, spying on its military, its diplo ...
were almost exclusively those committed in military service. The very name ''perduellio'', the name of the crime in the older Roman law, is evidence of this. ''Perduelles'' were, strictly, public enemies who bore arms against the state; and traitors were regarded as having no more rights than public enemies. The
Twelve Tables made it punishable with death to communicate with the enemy or to betray a citizen to the enemy. Other kinds of ''perduellio'' were punished by "interdiction of fire and water" (''aquae et ignis interdictio''), in other words, banishment. The crime was tried before a special tribunal (''quaestio'') by two officials (''duumviri perduellionis''), which was perhaps the earliest permanent criminal court existing at Rome.
At a later period, the name of ''perduellio'' gave place to that of ''laesa maiestas'', ''deminuta'' or ''minuta maiestas'', or simply ''maiestas''. The ''lex Iulia maiestatis'', to which the date of 48 B.C. has been conjecturally assigned, continued to be the basis of the Roman law of treason until the latest period of the empire. The original text of the law appears to have still dealt with what were chiefly military offences, such as sending letters or messages to the enemy, giving up a standard or fortress, and desertion.
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Expansion of the law of treason under Tiberius
With the Empire
An empire is a "political unit" made up of several territories and peoples, "usually created by conquest, and divided between a dominant center and subordinate peripheries". The center of the empire (sometimes referred to as the metropole) ex ...
, the law of treason was greatly expanded in scope, mainly in the reign of Tiberius
Tiberius Julius Caesar Augustus (; 16 November 42 BC – 16 March AD 37) was the second Roman emperor. He reigned from AD 14 until 37, succeeding his stepfather, the first Roman emperor Augustus. Tiberius was born in Rome in 42 BC. His father ...
, and led to the rise of a class of professional informers, called '' delatores''. The concept of the emperor as divine had much to do with this. It became a maxim that treason was next to sacrilege
Sacrilege is the violation or injurious treatment of a sacred object, site or person. This can take the form of irreverence to sacred persons, places, and things. When the sacrilegious offence is verbal, it is called blasphemy, and when physical ...
in gravity.[
The law as it existed in the time of Justinian is contained chiefly in the titles of the Digest and Codex ''Ad legem Iuliam maiestatis''. The definition given in the Digest (taken from ]Ulpian
Ulpian (; la, Gnaeus Domitius Annius Ulpianus; c. 170223? 228?) was a Roman jurist born in Tyre. He was considered one of the great legal authorities of his time and was one of the five jurists upon whom decisions were to be based according to ...
) is this: 'maiestatis crimen illud est quod adversus populum Romanum vel adversus securitatem eius committitur."'' ("The crime of majestas is that which is committed against the Roman people or against their safety.") Of treasons other than military offences, some of the more noticeable were the raising of an army or levying war without the command of the emperor, the questioning of the emperor's choice of a successor, the murder of (or conspiracy to murder) hostages or certain magistrates
The term magistrate is used in a variety of systems of governments and laws to refer to a civilian officer who administers the law. In ancient Rome, a '' magistratus'' was one of the highest ranking government officers, and possessed both judici ...
of high rank, the occupation of public places, the meeting within the city of persons hostile to the state with weapons or stones, incitement to sedition or administration of unlawful oaths, release of prisoners justly confined, falsification of public documents, and failure of a provincial governor to quit his province at the expiration of his office or to deliver his army to his successor.[
The intention (''voluntas'') was punishable as much as an overt act (''effectus''). "''Principes instar deorum esse''" ("Emperors are as gods") are the words of ]Tacitus
Publius Cornelius Tacitus, known simply as Tacitus ( , ; – ), was a Roman historian and politician. Tacitus is widely regarded as one of the greatest Roman historiography, Roman historians by modern scholars.
The surviving portions of his t ...
. This crime was called ''laesa maiestas divina'' in later law. It was not treason to repair a statue of the emperor which had decayed from age, to hit such a statue with a stone thrown by chance, to melt down such a statue if unconsecrated, to use mere verbal insults against the emperor, to fail in keeping an oath sworn by the emperor or to decide a case contrary to an imperial constitution.[
Treason was one of the ''publica judicia'', ''i.e.'' one of those crimes in which any citizen was entitled to prosecute. The law deprived the accused in a charge of treason of his ordinary remedy for malicious prosecution, and also took from him the privilege (which those accused of other crimes generally possessed) of immunity from accusation by women or infamous persons, from liability to be put to the torture, and from having his slaves ]torture
Torture is the deliberate infliction of severe pain or suffering on a person for reasons such as punishment, extracting a confession, interrogation for information, or intimidating third parties. Some definitions are restricted to acts c ...
d to make them testify against him.[
]
Punishment
The punishment from the time of Tiberius was death (usually by beheading) and confiscation of property, coupled with complete civil disability. A traitor could not make a will or a gift or emancipate a slave. Even the death of the accused, if guilty of treason of the gravest kind, such as levying war against the state, did not extinguish the charge, but the memory of the deceased became infamous, and his property was forfeited as though he had been convicted in his lifetime.[
]
References
{{Reflist
External links
A very good collection of resources maintained by professor Ernest Metzger
''The Roman Law Library'' by Professor Yves Lassard and Alexandr Koptev
Roman law