Roman Crime And Punishment In Ancient Rome

1071 Words3 Pages

Zoe Dean
Hickey
Latin i
04.26.17
Roman Crime and Punishments Crimes in ancient Rome were different then most crimes today to deal with these crimes they came up with many different consequences. Some included death, slavery, and banishment. The main reason these punishments were enforced were to keep their city under control much like our own country. Jail was not one of those ways. Jails were used in a very different way then we use them but was very effective but harsh. Most things in the roman empire were very harsh because romans wanted to be the very best. Before a punishment can happen the crime needs to committed first.
Wealthy citizens in Rome had many advantage in a criminal sense. A citizen of Rome would mostly hire guards to protect …show more content…

Jails were more of a detention cell. A very famous jail was the Mamertine jail. It was built around the 7th century B.C during the reign of the prisoners 4th king. Rome was one of the first places to use jails. Jails were used for holding some political for a short period of time. The cells were small cramped places and often had miserable conditions. Another way the romans used their jails was to put criminals to wait their execution, but they also had another choice. They could choose execution or they were allowed to starve to death in their cell. The people in the jails varied. Enemies that Rome had vanquished were held and often died in jail. Other people who were imprisoned were christians. The wealthiness in Rome played many roles, for example while the poor spent time in jail or other punishments, the wealthy did not have to go to jail or live with the miserable conditions. They only were under house arrest but with a lovely home with fountains and servants could not have been too bad. The Mamertine jail was simply a holding place for people who were going to …show more content…

It is no surprise that their ways of harsh battle with no mercy carried over to their laws and punishments. It was considered a crime to be born female. It was considered a crime to be born with a defect. The Roman empire wanted to control much of what was around them, which includes their people. Even though citizens were somewhat protected many of their crimes were still punishable and you did not want to be punished many punishments were severe. For example, getting thrown into a river in a sack with a viper or rooster. In conclusion, we can see that the romans were ruthless people that took their criminals and punishments seriously to stop any future

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