ABSTRACT
The argument of this chapter is that legal institutions and processes created under the Roman Republic had active and practical implications for the functioning of justice in Late Antiquity. The laws on violence, categorized as the offense vis, are especially relevant to this because remedies for injuries to persons or property caused by violence could be sought through both criminal and civil procedures, which, under the Republic and Early Empire, were the function of separate and clearly defined jurisdictions. For civil actions on violent dispossession from property, the relevant court was that of the praetor. For criminal cases, the court was that established by statutes on violence set up from 78 BCE onwards and formalized under the Empire by the Lex Julia de vi of Augustus. But the separation of processes was undermined by a series of unrelated developments: the gradual diminution of the praetor’s authority as judge; the codification of the Praetor’s Edict by imperial fiat under Hadrian in the 130s; and the spreading of the convention, always the case with provincial governors, that all cases were heard by a single magistrate who dealt with both criminal and civil matters in the same court. The result was a bonanza for lawyers and a maze of remedies and legal pitfalls for litigants.
