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The History of the Extortion Court at Rome, 123–70 b.c.

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 August 2013

J. P. V. D. Balsdon
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Extract

The available evidence concerning the history of the Extortion Court, the quaestio repetundarum, at Rome is tabulated opposite page 114. In view of the bulk of this evidence, it is at first sight surprising that this should be one of the most confused chapters of Roman history. Indeed, it is improbable that all Roman historians would agree upon any more precise statement of certainty than the following: that C. Gracchus, whether by a lex Sempronia iudiciaria, or by a lex Sempronia de repetundis, or by a lex Acilia de repetundis which may, or may not, be reproduced in the lex repetundarum, fragments of which are preserved at Naples and at Vienna (CIL i, 583), established equites (selected either from owners and past owners, within certain age limits, of the equus publicus, or from all those who possessed the equestrian census) either in place of, or in association with, senators as jurors in the quaestio de repetundis; that Q. Servilius Caepio, probably in his consulship in 106 B.C., proposed, and perhaps carried, a judiciary law in the interest of the Senate; that C. Servilius Glaucia either in m (Mommsen), 108 (Carcopino) 104 (Last) or 101 B.C. (Niccolini) carried a lex repetundarum and perhaps other judiciary laws in which he possibly either gave for the first time, or restored, to the equites complete possession of the juries and certainly effected two reforms in procedure, (a) by legalising the prosecution not only of recent magistrates and pro-magistrates, but also of their accomplices and (b) by introducing the form of ‘double action’ known as comperendinatio; that M. Livius Drusus, as tribune in 91 B.C., endeavoured unsuccessfully to establish, or to re-establish, as the case may be, mixed juries of senators and equites, and to make equestrian as well as senatorial jurors liable to prosecution for accepting bribes; that in 89 B.C. by a lex Plautia of the tribune M. Plautius Silvanus mixed juries were established, certainly for trials of maiestas, and perhaps for repetundae too. After this, the way is clearer, Sulla re-established senatorial juries, which survived until 70 B.C., when, by the lex Aurelia, jurors were selected from three panels—from senators, equites and tribuni aerarii.

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Research Article
Information
Papers of the British School at Rome , Volume 14 , November 1938 , pp. 98 - 114
Copyright
Copyright © British School at Rome 1938

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References

1 The clearest and fullest history of the court is to be found in Mommsen, Th., ‘Lex Repetundarum,’ Ges. Schr., 1, 1–64Google Scholar and ‘Über die leges iudiciariae de vii Jahrhunderts bis zur lex Aurelia,’ Ges. Schr. iii 339–355; Greenidge, A. H. J., The Legal Procedure of Cicero's Time (Oxford, 1901), 433–504Google Scholar; Strachan-Davidson, J. L., Problems of the Roman Criminal Law (Oxford 1912), ii, 75–152Google Scholar. This paper is written with the object of examining the theory put forward by Carcopino, J. in Bloch-Carcopino, , Histoire Romaine (Paris, 1935) 248–251. 311 f., 317Google Scholar and, in greater detail, in his book Autour des Gracques (Paris, 1928Google Scholar), especially on pp. 205–235. In case my criticisms of this theory should convey an impression of ungraciousness, I must state that no book on ancient history has ever stimulated or excited me more than Autour des Gracques.

2 Where detailed references are not given in the text or notes of this paper, they can easily be discovered by reference to this table. Asconius throughout is cited by the pages of A. C. Clark's edition (Oxford, 1907) and other Ciceronian scholiasts by the pages of the edition of Th. Stangl (Leipzig, 1912).

3 Ges. Schr. i, 18 f.

4 Autour des Gracques, 230.

5 Professor Last, H. M. in CAH ix, 162 fGoogle Scholar.

6 Niccolini, G., I fasti dei tribuni della plebe (Milan, 1934), 195 ffGoogle Scholar.

7 Or comperendinatus, Verr. ii, 1, 26.

8 Ges. Schr. i, 20 ff

9 Autour des Gracques, 205 ff.

10 E.g. by Last, H. M. in JRS xviii, 1928, 231 fGoogle Scholar.

11 Revue de philologie, 1934, p. 73.

12 See p. 104, n. 29 below.

13 See p. 98, n. 2 above.

14 See Strachan-Davidson, , op. cit. ii, 77 f.Google Scholar, for some very trenchant observations on the comparative value Cicero and our other authorities.

15 Strachan-Davidson, loc. cit., on Livius Drusus, ‘My own opinion is that Appian does not on this occasion win the crown promised to the one-eyed in the country of the blind, but that it must fall to Velleius.’

16 E.g. Judeich, W., Hist. Zeitschr., 3te. Folge, xv, 1913, 491 ff.Google Scholar; von Stern, E., Hermes lvi, 1921, 281 ffGoogle Scholar.

17 I, 38.

18 There is some indication of an alternative figure in the MSS. of Verr. I, 38, but pseudo-Asconius ad loc., p. 218, confirms ‘quinquaginta.’ He himself elsewhere, ad Div. 8, pp. 188 f., gives forty years for the length of this period.

19 And, incidentally, the comments of pseudo-Asconius to which reference was made in the previous note.

20 See Kühner, R., Grammatik der lateinischen Sprache2 (Hanover, 1914), II, ii, 352 ffGoogle Scholar. For this reference, and for valuable assistance on this matter, I am indebted to my colleague, Mr. E. A. Barber. I am surprised to find that this point does not appear to have attracted the attention of previous historians. Nearly all historians (e.g. Mommsen, , Ges. Schr. iii, 342Google Scholar) treat Cicero's remark as firm evidence that mixed courts cannot have existed, in Cicero's opinion, before 89 B.C., though Professor states, H. M. Last (CAH ix, 162, n. 3Google Scholar) that ‘he does not share the prevailing confidence with which conclusions are drawn from this passage.’

21 Mommsen, , Ges. Schr. i, 18Google Scholar. An inscription (I.G.R.R. iv, 1028), which proves the existence, earlier than 105 B.C., of a Lex Rubria Acilia, suggests that Acilius' bunate may have been exactly contemporary with one of the tribunates of C. Gracchus. See Last, H. M. in CAH ix, 892Google Scholar.

22 I cannot see why the fact that the first part of this statement ‘répond quasi littéralement’ to the sentence in the Verrines on which it is a comment is thought by Carcopino (op. cit., 215) to increase its value. Carcopino's translation, ‘une loi dite Acilia, qui est la plus sévère de celles dont les crimes de concussion aient été l'objet,’ would, I suspect, have given pseudo-Asconius something of a shock.

23 p. 231.

24 See p. 113, below.

25 Ann. xii, 60, 4.

26 Valerius Maximus vi, 9, 13.

27 Strachan-Davidson, , op. cit. ii, 80 n. 2Google Scholar, thinks it likely to belong, not to Caepio's consulship, but to 111 B.C., repeating Mommsen's error of thinking that the Naples law must have been repealed in that year. See, on this, p. 114, below. Strachan-Davidson does not attach sufficient importance to the question of the origin of the information possessed by Cassiodorus and by Obsequens, whom he summarily dismisses as ‘late chroniclers.’

28 P. Oxy. iv, 668.

29 Klotz, A., ‘Die Epitoma des Livius,’ Hermes xlviii, 1913, 542–557Google Scholar; ‘Zu den Periochae des Livius,’ Philologus xci, 1936, 67–88Google Scholar. Cf. Mommsen, Th., ‘Die Chronik des Cassiodorus Senator vom J. 519 n. Chr.,’ Abh. d.k. Sachs. Ges., phil.-hist. Kl., iii, 1861, 547–697, esp. 551–558Google Scholar.

30 Klotz, A., Philologus xci, 74Google Scholar, ‘Denn es ist unmöglich dass irgendein Auszug aus Livius den Text der Prodigia, falls sie überhaupt im einzelnen aufgenommen wurden, so wenig verkürzt haben sollte, wie dies bei Obsequens der Fall ist.’

31 See A. Klotz, loc. cit., and Grenfell, B. P. and Hunt, A. S., P. Oxy, iv, pp. 92 fGoogle Scholar. A comparison of the surviving books of Livy with their Periochae makes evident the haphazard and careless manner in which the author of the Periochae produced his work.

32 Mommsen, misled, as I have endeavoured to show (p. 101, n. 20 above) by Cicero, Pro Cornelio, quoted by Asconius, p. 79, finds the truth in a combination of Tacitus.’ account and that of Cassiodorus and Obsequens. He writes (Ges. Schr. iii, 342), ‘Livius hebt auch hier wieder mehr das Princip hervor, während Tacitus sich streng an den Wortinhalt hält—jene Angabe ist eine historische, diese eine antiquarische.’

33 BC i, 35, 3, 157.

34 Cicero, Pro Plancio 12, Pro Murena 36.

35 De Invent, i, 92, De Oratore ii, 199 f.

36 Brutus 164, ‘Mihi quidem a pueritia quasi magistra fuit.’

37 De Oratore i, 225 ff. G. L. Hendrickson has argued (CP xxviii, 1933, 158Google Scholar) that the words ‘parum commode’ mean ‘unsuccessfully,’ and that this should be treated as evidence that the law was not passed; but his argument is clearly not valid.

38 viii, 1, 8.

39 See p. 113, n. 62, below.

40 Verr. II, i, 26; Greenidge op. cit., p. 501.

41 Pro Rab. Post. 8 f.

42 Asconius in Scaurianam, p. 21.

43 Cicero, , Pro Scauro i, 2Google Scholar.

44 Brutus 224.

45 See p. 98, notes 3 and 4.

46 The view of Fabricius, E. (Heidelberger Sitzungsberichte, phil.-hist. Kl. xv, 1924–1925, part iGoogle Scholar) which cannot, surely, survive the criticisms of E. G. Hardy (CQ 1925, 185 ff.).

47 See further, on this point, p. 114, below.

48 Asconius in Scaurianam, p. 21.

49 See p. 98, notes 5 and 6.

50 See p. 99, note 10.

51 Pseudo-Asconius, ad Verr. II, i, 75, p. 242Google Scholar, notices that in trial before a provincial governor's consilium, if a case was adjourned (ampliatio), the re-hearing could be called actio altera, like the second part of a trial under the comperendinatio procedure at Rome.

52 P. 231.

53 Though I do not deny that the imposition of a fine for excessive adjournments ‘ist schon der Beginn der Entwicklung, aus welcher die comperendinatio hervorging’; P-W i, cols. 1979 f., s.v. ampliatio; cf. iv, col. 790, s.v. comperendinatio.

54 The phrase ‘illam Aciliam legem, qua lege multi semel accusati, semel dicta causa, semel auditis testibus condemnati sunt’ (Verr. II, i, 26) does not warrant Carcopino's interpretation (op. cit., 216), ‘Selon Cicéron, la loi d'Acilius prescrivait de juger sur un (Carcopino's italics, not mine) réquisitoire.’ Again, on p. 213, it is only thanks to the omission of a vital sentence in the text of Cicero that Carcopino can force the passage, ‘Glaucia primus tulit … condemnati sunt,’ to support his argument.

55 It had been employed earlier by L. and M. Lucullus against Cotta, L., Verr. I, 55Google Scholar and pseudo-Asconius ad loc., p. 222.

56 P. 205; stated also on pp. 230, 232.

57 Verr. I, 34, ‘Tua ratio est ut secundum binos ludos mihi respondere incipias, mea ut ante primos ludos comperendinem.’ I am grateful to Dr. A. B. Poynton for emphasising to me the importance of this passage.

58 Carcopino, op. cit. 218, with whom, partly on the strength of the meaning of lex in section 25 and in the first sentence of section 26 in Verr. II, i, I agree. On the other hand, Dr. A. B. Poynton and Professor H. M. Last, to whom I owe thanks for his kindness in revising the manuscript of this article, consider, as Greenidge considered (The Legal Procedure of Cicero's Time, 501 n. 2), that by lex Cicero meant the lex Acilia.

59 Very little evidence exists of ampliatio at all, and none of its employment in the quaestio repetundarum in the Ciceronian period; Greenidge, op. cit., 499 ff.

60 Ad Verr. II, i, 2.6, p. 230.

61 P. 224.

62 Verr. II, i, 71; ii, 177; v, 32, etc. Cf. Greenidge, op. cit., 501, n. 1.

63 Ad Verr. II, i, 74, p. 242.

64 Mommsen, , Ges. Schr. i, p. 18Google Scholar; Carcopino, op. cit., 215.

65 F. Münzer, P-W xiii, col. 258 (L. Licinius Crassus, no. 55); iiA, cols. 1783 f. (Q. Servilius Caepio); cols. 1796 f. (C. Servilius Glaucia); Römische Adelsparteien, pp. 287 f., believes in the historical reality of Caepio's legislation, as described by Cassiodorus and by Obsequens, but he follows Mommsen in placing Glaucia's tribunate in 111 B.C.

66 As it will be some time before the work that I was doing in Rome in the spring of 1937 will be ready for publication, I should like to take this opportunity of expressing my gratitude for the privilege of residing at the British School and of using both its library and the Bibliothek des deutschen archäologischen Instituts at Rome.