Crime and Punishment: An Interpretation of Ancient Roman Law enforcement in Pompeii
Introduction
Today, our police force is affiliated with the slogan, To Serve and Protect. The policemen and women are now trained to perform their duties as protectors of the peace by enforcing law and order and ensuring the safety of the citizens they are put in charge of. However, it has only been since the eighteenth and nineteenth century that “a police force in the sense of a specialized and impartial law-enforcement agency” has been around (Wilfred ix). Before law enforcement became the government institution that we are used to seeing today, it was a system dependent upon the everyday person to ensure that justice was dispatched. This paper explores the world of Pompeii’s law enforcement during it duration as a Roman colony before its destruction by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 BC. By answering the questions of who enforced that laws and what kinds of crimes often required enforcement we can see how the judicial system of authority shaped the culture of Pompeii. …show more content…
They are perhaps the closest thing to a modern day police force that was available in Pompeii. The only thing was that the sole propose of the Vigiles was not originally to protect and serve the people, but the emperors. The Urban Cohorts also only existed to protect the emperor and his imperial capital. This division of the military was not focused on fires. The Cohortes Urbanae worked as a specialized group of enforcers, like a modern day SWAT team, whose job it was "to keep order and suppress riots at public games" (Alderte 104). It is important to keep in mind that though having a military presence within the city may have deterred criminal activity, neither division of the military was “specifically charged with the prevention, detection, or investigation of ordinary crime” (Alderte
Introduction
Today, our police force is affiliated with the slogan, To Serve and Protect. The policemen and women are now trained to perform their duties as protectors of the peace by enforcing law and order and ensuring the safety of the citizens they are put in charge of. However, it has only been since the eighteenth and nineteenth century that “a police force in the sense of a specialized and impartial law-enforcement agency” has been around (Wilfred ix). Before law enforcement became the government institution that we are used to seeing today, it was a system dependent upon the everyday person to ensure that justice was dispatched. This paper explores the world of Pompeii’s law enforcement during it duration as a Roman colony before its destruction by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 BC. By answering the questions of who enforced that laws and what kinds of crimes often required enforcement we can see how the judicial system of authority shaped the culture of Pompeii. …show more content…
They are perhaps the closest thing to a modern day police force that was available in Pompeii. The only thing was that the sole propose of the Vigiles was not originally to protect and serve the people, but the emperors. The Urban Cohorts also only existed to protect the emperor and his imperial capital. This division of the military was not focused on fires. The Cohortes Urbanae worked as a specialized group of enforcers, like a modern day SWAT team, whose job it was "to keep order and suppress riots at public games" (Alderte 104). It is important to keep in mind that though having a military presence within the city may have deterred criminal activity, neither division of the military was “specifically charged with the prevention, detection, or investigation of ordinary crime” (Alderte