Roman Litigation – Reports of Court Proceedings
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Imperium and Officium Working Papers (IOWP) Roman Litigation – Reports of Court Proceedings Version 02 May 2011 Bernhard Palme (University of Vienna, Department of Ancient History, Papyrology and Epigraphy) Abstract: Handbook article on litigation in Roman Egypt: outline of the legal practice, the officials involved, and the types of documents like court proceedings, petitions, regulations. Selection of relevant documents with translation and commentary. © Bernhard Palme 2011 [email protected] NFN Imperium and Officium. Comparative Studies in Ancient Bureaucracy and Officialdom 2 Roman Litigation – Reports of Court Proceedings The emperor was the highest judicial authority in Egypt since its incorporation into the Roman Empire. He could be approached in a rescript procedure and he ruled on legal issues, which had been personally brought forth, either with the proviso si preces veritate nituntur, or he delegated trial and ruling to a local governor (Turpin 1991, Honoré 21994, Mourgues 1995). An appeal to the emperor occurred rarely in practice due to the exorbitant cost involved. Things were different, if an emperor visited the province and could be approached by the local population. During the journey of Septimius Severus to Egypt in 200 C.E., for example, various disputes were plead before him and his decisions (rescripta, ἀποκρίµατα) were subsequently published in Alexandria (P.Col. VI 123 = SB VI 9526). Normally, however, the praefectus Aegypti is, as representative of the emperor, the responsible person for the centralized jurisdiction (Wolff - Rupprecht 2002, 104–113). He officiates in plano et pro tribunali in Alexandria and at the annually held conventus (διαλογισµός) in distinguished cities of the Chora, especially Pelusium and Memphis (Foti Talamanca 1979, Haensch 1997). Additionally, the iuridicus Alexandreae (δικαιοδότης), the archidikastes and the idios logos all had, presumably, independent judicial authority. The legal system of Roman Egypt was, of cours, much more elaborated, and it developed during the centuries (Baade 1956, Seidl 1973, Anagnostou-Cañas 1991). Court cases, conducted according to Roman law, had the cognitio extra ordinem form. The practice, which is evident from the papyri, exhibits a wide range in the structure of the proceeding, where the borders between legal procedure and administrative procedure become blurred. The actual spate of law cases to be contended with is shown in P.Yale I 61: during three days of a conventus in year 210 C.E., the prefect had to conduct no less than 1804 law suits. The legal cases, therefore, had to be already well prepared by the local authorities, usually the strategi of the nomes (Witt 1977): an immediate ruling could only be made when the evidence was clear. The prefect referred all other cases back to the local authorities for the further gathering of evidence, in most cases to the strategus. Nevertheless, due to the large number of legal cases, the prefect delegated many suits, either at the very beginning or during the course of the proceedings, to iudices pedanei. These men were usually acting as procuratores (e.g. as epistrategus, archidikastes), military officers of equestrian status (Text 3) or strategi of the nomes (Texte 1 and 2), the latter primarily in cases involving peregrini. There does not seem to have been strict rules for such delegations. Only cases involving a high amount in dispute (as in P.Oxy. IV 706) – barring criminal jurisdiction – or political significance (as in FIRA III 19a) most likely reached a hearing before the prefect. Local courts continued to exist into the second century alongside the courts of the governor (and procuratores) and heard minor cases. The courts of the chrematistai (Jörs 1915 and 1918) were active also after the Ptolemaic period until at least 6/5 B.C.E. (SB III 6663), and Demotic documents indicate trials, until late into the first century C.E.., in which the NFN Imperium and Officium. Comparative Studies in Ancient Bureaucracy and Officialdom NFN Imperium and Officium. Comparative Studies in Ancient Bureaucracy and Officialdom 3 ruling was made dependent on a temple oath in the Ptolemaic manner (cf. also the sworn declaration in Text 1). In the second century, there still existed in Alexandria the court agency of the chrematistai and other criteria (whose name indicates its Ptolemaic origin), which handled (at least) enforcement and certification issues. The so-called (Egyptian) Law book of Hermoupolis, whose Demotic original was composed in third century B.C.E., was still copied in a Greek translation in the second half of the second century C.E. (P.Oxy. XLVI 3285). It wasn’t until the Constitutio Antoniniana (212 C.E.) that all inhabitants of the empire became Roman citizens and thus were subject to Roman law – theoretically at any rate, for it is not clear how long enchoric law(s), which appear in papyri as οἱ νόµοι τῆς χώρας oder οἱ τῶν Αἰγυπτίων νόµοι, continued to be simultaneously in use (Wolff - Rupprecht 2002, 113–149). Local legal traditions seems at least to have be integrated in „provincial law“. „Provincial law“, which is not identical with „imperial law“, consists on the one hand of legislation enacted by the princeps or the prefect, and the legal practice, of the prefect or the designated procurators, on the other. Not least the Gnomon of the Idios Logos (P.Oxy. XLII 3014, Oxy., 1st cent. C.E. and BGU V 1210, Ars., 149 C.E.) shows, that older, regional procedures were also considered by Roman office bearers. A methodical romanization of private law in the judicature did not take place. There solely existed for the soldiers a separate jurisdiction (Jung 1982, Texte 3 und 5). The people in the Chora willingly approached the officers stationed there with the request for legal aid or the hearing of evidence, although the soldiers possessed no legal competence (Peachin 2007, esp. 82–97, Texte 4). The governor’s dispensation of justice cannot be opposed by either party. The Roman office bearers presumably made judgements based essentially on Roman law, but they were free to take local practice and particularities into consideration (cf. the Gnomon). The proceedings begin with the editio actionis, the disclosure of the matter of dispute with the defendant (Foti Talamanca 1979 and 1984). There existed no strict regulation concerning the form of the editio, but as one had to prove that the editio had happened, one willingly undertook a „dispute announcement“ (litis denuntiatio) through a court official. If proof of summons was presented and the defendant had failed to appear to the appointed court hearings, a ruling by default could be decreed. The verbal trial obviously prevailed, wherein both parties were heard. In larger cases, lawyers (synegoroi, nomikoi, rhetores) almost always acted on behalf of clients and undertook the legal explanation of the circumstances. The parties had to furnish the legal rules in their favour, relevant files or legal documents were read. Witnesses recorded their testimony in written form prior to the trial (e.g. SB V 7523, Ars., 153 C.E.). No documents indicating sworn statements from witnesses in oral form have come to light. The trials were usually in public: they were carefully recorded and the minutes were made accessible to the public before they were stored in archives (see following). It is first with the emergence of the „libellus“ procedure in the fourth century (Text 6) that law suits possibly are decided on the grounds of written documents (the complaint and evidence) only, without a hearing of the parties. The rulings of the judges are recorded most often in NFN Imperium and Officium. Comparative Studies in Ancient Bureaucracy and Officialdom NFN Imperium and Officium. Comparative Studies in Ancient Bureaucracy and Officialdom 4 only a brief sentence in the transcripts. The judgements (sententiae) were presumably publicized by a notice from the governor (Haensch 1994). The enforcement of a ruling was left to the winner of the trial. That even an imperial judgement was difficult to enforce when faced with local potentates is shown in P.Cair.Masp. I 67032 = Sel.Pap. II 363 (Constantinopel, 551 C.E.), where two high-ranking comites travel, for a fee, from Constantinople to the Thebais in order to compel a judgement as exsecutores. Settlements were regarded by the judges, especially in late antiquity, as a worthwhile goal (P.Münch. I 6; Syene, 583 C. E.). The arbitration agreement (compromissum) and the settlement (dialysis) first appear in larger numbers in the fifth century. Most of the clues we have to case practice and hearing procedure in Roman Egypt come from court proceedings transcripts (Anagnostou-Cañas 2000). Approximately 200 transcripts of this sort have become known up until now from the Principate (Coles 1966) and approximately 55 from the Dominate (Thomas 1998, 132f.), some however very fragmentary, pieces of evidence. The written accounts of the hearings before the courts of the Roman governor (praefectus Aegypti), the procuratores or the delegated judges differ clearly from the forms of legal proceedings which were recorded during the time of the Ptolemaic rulers (Jörs, 1915, 275– 282). The narrative form dominated at that time, in which both the summations of the parties as well as the judgement were held in oratio obliqua. The last examples of this style are: P.Ryl. II 65 (Oxy., 67 B.C.E.) and BGU VIII 1773 (Heracl., 58 B.C.E.). No documents exist from the final phase of the Ptolemaic reign and the first decades of Roman rule which would illuminate the exact point in time and conversion process to the Roman type of protocol. As the Ptolemaic courts of the chrematistai are still active in 6/5 B.C.E. (SB III 6663) and Ptolemaic court proceedings transcripts existed certainly until at least this time as well.