Infamia: Its Place In Roman Public and Private Law [1894]
A. H. J. (Abel Henry Jones) Greenidge
Number of quotes: 20
Book ID: 115 Page: 2/3
Section: 4B
Leaving out of sight all the distinctions of privileged and unprivileged classes in Rome, of dominus and servus, ingenuus and libertines, patronus and cliens, with which we have here no concern, and fixing our attention on the civis romanus, we shall find that civil honour at Rome is known to us entirely under its negative aspect.
Quote ID: 2717
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Book ID: 115 Page: 4
Section: 4B
It has been observed above that the Roman State and the Roman jurist always looked on existimatio as a condition of which the citizen was already in enjoyment.
Quote ID: 2718
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Book ID: 115 Page: 13
Section: 4B
The nature of the subject which we have to treat in detail is now tolerably clear. It is the subject of the special disqualifications based on an injury to reputation (laesa existimatio).Pastor John notes: John’s note: disqualifications regarding the reception of honors or governmental positions
. . . .
It was this civic disability, conceived consciously as based on a moral imperfection, that was generally spoken of by the Romans as infamia.
Quote ID: 2719
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Book ID: 115 Page: 19
Section: 4B
In the pleadings of Cicero which have reference to disqualification based on loss of reputation we find fama and existimatio used constantly as synonyms.Pastor John’s note: reputation
Quote ID: 2720
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Book ID: 115 Page: 19
Section: 4B
There was no convenient negative form for the term existimatio, which was becoming technical: but there was for its synonym fama: infamia, in fact, must have been the technical equivalent to laesa existimatio or minutio existimationis.
Quote ID: 2721
Time Periods: ?
Book ID: 115 Page: 21
Section: 4B
….‘That Roman is called infamis, who in consequence of a general rule (not of censorian caprice), in regard to a subsisting citizenship, has lost the political rights belonging thereto.’Pastor John notes: John’s note: Savigny; author disagrees. See page 33
Quote ID: 2722
Time Periods: ?
Book ID: 115 Page: 33
Section: 4B
It is obvious, from the foregoing review, that the criminal law of Rome knew of no one perpetual disqualification attendant on a minutio existimationis brought about by conviction. Above all, loss of the most distinctive political right of citizenship—the suffragium—is never mentioned in these cases. Sometimes these laws disqualify from honores and from the Senate, sometimes from the album judicum, sometimes they go so far as to inhibit the evidence of the condemned; but nowhere are the disabilities uniform, and nowhere do they imply the loss of all political privileges.
Quote ID: 2723
Time Periods: ?
Book ID: 115 Page: 105/106
Section: 4B
4. Effects of the Censorian Infamia.The primary effect of the censorian infamia was always a disqualification for certain public rights. The nature of the disqualification depended partly on the rank of the person disqualified, but was always regulated to some degree by the gravity of the offence. The senator, guilty of an action that disgraced his position, was removed from the list {2}, the knight was forced to give up his position in the equestrian centuries {1}, and the commoner was removed from the tribe (tribu moveri) or made an aerarius (aerarius fieri, relinqui).
. . . .
….if the censor, at this epoch, made a man an aerarius, he deprived him of his vote and of his right of service in the legions.
Quote ID: 2724
Time Periods: ?
Book ID: 115 Page: 121/130
Section: 4B
….instances of immediate infamia.i. ‘Qui corpora suo muliebria passus est {1}.’
ii. Those who have hired out their services to fight with wild beasts
. . . .
As cases of mediate infamia it specifies---
iii. Condemnation on a capital charge {5}.
iv. Apparently false accusation (calumnia) in an ordinary criminal court (judicium publicum).
. . . .
v. Ignominious dismissal of a soldier from the army {1}.
. . . .
It is evident, therefore, that this case does not quite correspond to others of immediate infamia, since it does not follow on a course of action merely, but on one recognised by a judgment. The judgment, however, is not a legal sentence, and since the infamia is here recognised as the result of a matter of fact, it may be fairly brought under this category. The ignominious dismissal is here mentioned merely in connection with the purposes of the Edict. But throughout the history of Rome it involved other more serious disqualifications. In Caesar’s municipal law it is made a bar to being a member of a local Senate: in the Empire such persons lost all the specific civil privileges of soldiers (jus militia {1}) and were forbidden to live at Rome, and apparently in any place where the Emperor was residing {2}.
vi. Dishonourable trades or professions are next mentioned: and amongst these the profession of an actor: any one who has appeared on the stage (scaena), for the purpose of exhibiting himself, is declared infamis by the Edict {3}.
. . . .
As regards the main point, what constituted a stage, Ulpian quotes Labeo’s definition, that it was any place to which the public was admitted, and where one exhibited one’s self, in whatever manner, for their amusement {4}.
. . . .
vii. Immediate infamia also attached to one qui lenocinium fecerit {3}, whether this trade was exercised directly or indirectly {4}; the stigma even attached to the freedman, who had exercised it during a condition of slavery.
. . . .
viii. ….It relates to the rules of mourning (luctus) at Rome.
ix. (Skipped)
. . . .
x. We now turn to the cases of infamia mediate mentioned in the Edict….
. . . .
As calumnia consisted in bringing false charges…. so praevaricatio consisted in concealing true charges {1}.
. . . .
xi. The Edict next takes cognizance of certain private delicts: theft (furtum), robbery (vi bona rapta), injury (injuriae), and fraud (dolus malus); ….
Quote ID: 2725
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Book ID: 115 Page: 131
Section: 4B
xii. In certain obligatory relations other than delicts an adverse judgment on the defendant produced infamia: this was the case with the contractual relations….
Pastor John notes: John’s note: etc.
Quote ID: 2726
Time Periods: ?
Book ID: 115 Page: 144/145
Section: 4B
(xxi) …. But it was chiefly after the conception had been fixed by Constantine that we find a change in the character of the infamia. It was a change that naturally accompanied the transference of law-making from the judges and the interpreting jurisconsults to the sole person of the Emperor. The infamia has no longer a natural growth: it almost loses its moral significance. It is employed merely as a very powerful weapon in the hands of the Emperor to check evils of administration as they arose.
Quote ID: 2727
Time Periods: ?
Book ID: 115 Page: 145
Section: 4B
(xxii) Who, in a case which he had sent on appeal to the Emperor, had not forwarded all the documents which had been produced by the parties in the case, and were necessary to the full solution of the question at issue.Pastor John notes: John’s note: judges, etc.
Quote ID: 2728
Time Periods: ?
Book ID: 115 Page: 146
Section: 4B
(xxvii) After the Court the Bar deserved attention: and we find the Emperors taking precautions against a form of civilised barbarism peculiarly difficult to deal with—the unmeasured license of invective and insinuation which not infrequently marks the pleadings of advocates.Pastor John notes: John’s note: lawyers
Quote ID: 2729
Time Periods: ?
Book ID: 115 Page: 147
Section: 4B
(xxxi) In civil matters, the only new regulation—if indeed it was a new one and not the restatement of an old principle—that comes before us during this period, recalls the early working of the infamia in its connection with private law; for it refers to the violation of verbal compacts. By a constitution of Areadius and Honorius, of the year 395 A.D., any one over age who has violated a pact or transaction by not fulfilling the promises contained in it, or has attempted to evade it by a request made to the judge, or a supplication addressed to the sovereign, is declared infamis {5}.
Quote ID: 2730
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Book ID: 115 Page: 151
Section: 4B
(xxxvi) …. The life of a senator (decurio) came in course of time to be one of burden, expense, and even of danger: and concealment of the unlucky people who were qualified for the local senates was not unusual. A constitution of Valentinian I, Valens and Gratian, of 371 A.D., punishes any one guilty of such concealment with infamia {3}.
Quote ID: 2731
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Book ID: 115 Page: 152
Section: 4B
(xxxix) The last instance of infamia that we have to chronicle was an inevitable consequence of the recognition of a canon of orthodoxy by the State. By an Edict of Gratian, Valentinian II, and Theodosius I, published in 380 A.D., all heretics are declared infames {3}. Special disabilities were from time to time inflected both on heretics and pagans. Theodosius I declared the Eunomians intestabiles: a similar threat was pronounced by the same Emperor against Christians who had gone over to heathendom {4}. But it was on heretics rather than on pagans that disabilities were most frequently imposed; and by this infamia was finally meant exclusion from all honours and dignities.
Quote ID: 2732
Time Periods: ?
Book ID: 115 Page: 153
Section: 4B
The definitions of heresy depend on the decisions of the successive councils. By Justinian orthodoxy was defined in accordance with the decisions of the Councils of Nicaea, Constantinople, Ephesus and Chalcedon {1}
Quote ID: 2733
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Book ID: 115 Page: 154
Section: 4B
It has now been sufficiently demonstrated that infamia was always primarily a matter of public law; ….
Quote ID: 2734
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Book ID: 115 Page: 171/172
Section: 4B
By the Lex Julia, as it has been preserved to use by Ulpian {1}, senators and their descendants are forbidden to marry freedwomen, actresses, and the daughters of actors or actresses. Other freeborn Romans (ingenui) were forbidden to marry prostitutes, lenae, a woman manumitted by a leno or lena, one caught in adultery or condemned in a judicium publicum, actresses; and, in accordance with a senatus consultum, a woman condemned by the Senate.
Quote ID: 2735
Time Periods: ?
Book ID: 115 Page: 177
Section: 4B
Of the theory of the censorian infamia, so far as its permanence was concerned, two possible views may be taken. One is that it was in theory perpetual, while subject to reversal by each succeeding censor: ….. . . .
The other view is that the disqualifications pronounced by the censor were considered as valid only for the lustral period of five years which intervened between his ordinances and the appointment of his successor {1}: ….
Quote ID: 2736
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