Review of Julia Hillner, Prison, Punishment and Penance in Late Antiquity (original) (raw)

Reflections on the Roman legal culture

Rome, just like other states of the ancient world, has stated its supremacy by warlike conquests, but also by perfecting its institutions and even by the use of diplomacy. Of all legal systems of the ancient worlds, that of Rome seems by far the most interesting and influential for the latter development of law. This character is due, primarily, to the practical spirit of the Romans and their tremendous capacity to assimilate and adapt cultural elements and institutions from other legal systems. We should also consider the giant leap that the Roman civilization has made, from the farthest antiquity, to the creation of institutions and concepts, principles that would survive the Roman Empire and decisively contribute to the construction of modern law. There are two characteristics that can best describe the specificity of the legal Roman culture: constructivism and conservatism. Keywords: legal history, Roman legal culture, characteristics

Plato’s Conception of Punitive Justice

Universality of Punishment, 2015

The analysis demonstrates that for Plato the principal aim of punishment is not the defence of values acknowledged by the legal system nor the well being of the state, but the good of the individual – his personal development, which is, first of all, moral development. This development consists of the attainment of the greatest – situated on the level of existence – excellence of the subject, which is the virtue of justice, an inner unity based on inner regularity, order, harmony and straightness. Attainment of the virtue of justice is likewise the attainment of happiness. In principle, punishment ought to be adapted and proportionate not to the act committed, but to the state of the subject, the state of his soul. It should be appropriate medicine, returning health to the soul, restoring inner order, harmony and straightness. The elements of a retributive concept of punishment become salient above all in the case of the most hardened criminals, who are internally so spoiled that no amelioration is possible, no punishment can be a suitable, sufficient medicine. Yet, the punishment is deserved, proportional to the degree of depravity of the offender, and thus possesses a deterrent value. Moreover, the suffering of the offender, since it is beneficial for others, contributes to his inner unity and his goodness. The preceding analysis concerning Plato’s conception of punishment clearly shows that the aim of punishment is not the good of the state, nor the abstractly conceived order of justice. The aims of punishment are not located beyond the individual (the individual soul). Therefore, in this conception of punishment there are no elements of thinking typical of that in the spirit of totalitarianism. The law and the state serve the good of the individual. This is an important argument on behalf of the postulate of a non-totalitarian interpretation of the Republic and the others dialogs of Plato.

Thinking like a lawyer: the case for Roman law

"Acta Universitatis Lodziensis. Folia Iuridica", 2022

The aim of this piece is to present an overview of certain recent trends which have emerged in the study and teaching of Roman law. These trends are identified and placed within the larger context of the role and function of the teaching of Roman law in Law Schools during the twentieth century. In addition, it is argued in this piece that trends regarding the study of Roman legal sources which have emerged in the context of U.S. Law Schools have the potential to enrich the discipline and to permit new questions to be asked about Roman law.

'Ideas of law in Hellenistic and Roman legal practice'

P. Dresch and H. Skoda (eds.), Legalism: Anthropology and History, 2012

This opening chapter discusses two interconnected topics. First, it examines how the vocabulary of law, right, and justice (such terms as Latin lex, ius and iura, iustitia, regulum, and Greek nomos, nomimon, thesmos, dike, dikaios, philanthropa) was used in Hellenistic and Roman legal and administrative practice (both ‘governmental’ and ‘non-governmental’), and what kinds of rules and regulations were actually issued and enforced by imperial and royal governments, local communities, and private associations. Secondly, it considers the extent to which modern attempts to understand law and justice and to classify types of legal rules can properly be applied to Roman and Hellenistic material circa 300 BC -- AD 250. This bears a superficial resemblance to the old search for a ‘spirit of Roman law’ (von Jhering’s Geist des römischen Rechts, 1852 onward) or to analyses of the principles of Roman jurisprudence (most notably Schulz’s Principles of Roman Law, 1936), but the aim here is in fact quite different. It is neither to establish the underlying ‘mindset’ nor to unpack ideas about what is just, which Roman jurists supposedly did not quite articulate themselves, but instead to understand the significance in practice of terms such as ‘law’ and ‘justice’, and to compare this with modern terminology and modern concepts. Even though (or, perhaps, because) European thinking about law and justice grew largely out of Romanist theory, it often imposes unhelpful preconceptions. The anthropologist’s concerns with ‘translating culture’ deserve more prominence. Whilst thinking of ancient law in the categories developed by the German nineteenth-century Pandektistik is now widely criticized, no systematic attempt has so far been made to deal in other terms with concepts of law implied in Roman and Hellenistic legal practice. The applicability, or otherwise, of more recent attempts to grasp ancient law through concepts of law, justice, and rules of conduct drawn from legal philosophy and anthropology also remains largely unexplored. The chapter concentrates on the Hellenistic and Roman period, to about AD 250, for which the ideas of legal thinkers can be compared with abundant (if rather unevenly spread) documentary material from different regions of the Graeco-Roman world. This is of particular comparative interest for historians dealing with other periods and settings and for anthropologists, since during the Hellenistic period we can explore understandings of ‘law’ and ‘rules’ at many different levels, from empire to village or trade association, rather than just at the city-state level characteristic of the preceding age.