IMMU´NITAS
IMMU´NITAS Immunitas means an exemption from burdens
imposed by the state ;
munus, according to the
definition of Paulus (
Dig. 50,
16,
18), is an “
onus, quod cum remittatur, vacationem militiae munerisque
praestat inde immunitatem appellari.” Such a remission might
either be granted to individual citizens of a special state from some or all
of the munera imposed by that state, or to classes of individuals throughout
the Roman world; or the immunitas might take the form of special exemptions
granted to whole states from certain duties which they owed to Rome: and in
this, its most usual form, immunitas is generally equivalent to exemption
from tribute.
This immunity conferred on states was, in the earlier Roman Empire,
inseparable from the idea of
societas, and was
not regarded as a special privilege conferred on certain favoured
communities amongst the socii. According to the old Roman principle,
alliance with Rome excluded
stipendium of any
kind. This was not only the case with the Italians, but with the allied
states out of Italy. In any classification the
foederatae and
liberae civitates
invariably appear as
immunes [see
SOCII]. It is true that in the
less organised portions of the Roman Empire the assertion that a nation was
free did not necessarily imply that it was
immunis; on the conquest of Epirus in 167 B.C., though all the Illyrians were declared
liberi, only some were declared “non solum liberi sed
etiam immunes” (
Liv. 45.26). But the
general principle of the taxation of free civic communities did not begin
until the period of the later Republic or the early Empire. We find it in
the case of Byzantium, which Tacitus describes as tributary
(
Ann. 12.63), although after the Macedonian war it had been
in alliance with Rome and had certainly not been taxed in the early
Republic; and in the case of the tributary states of Asia mentioned by
Tacitus (
Tac. Ann. 2.47), two of which,
Magnesia ad Sipylum and Apollonidea, were
liberae (
Strabo xiii. p.621;
Cic.
pro Flacco, 29, 71). This change is
specially noticeable in the East, and probably originated with Pompey's
organisation of Asia. Henceforth immunitas was not a necessary accompaniment
of autonomy nor even of the
Latinitas which was
conferred on states in the last century of the Republic and in the Empire
(Mommsen,
Staatsr. iii. p. 684 ff.; Marquardt,
Staatsverw. i. p. 354 ff.); and the immunitas of states
became more of an exceptional political privilege. Sometimes it was a
special immunity, such as the
beneficium
claimed by the state Tyras in Moesia that its citizens should be freed from
the port dues of Illyricum (
C. I. L. iii. n. 781); sometimes
a general exemption from all external burdens, such as that enjoyed by Ilium
(
Dig. 27,
17,
1; cf.
Suet. Cl. 25). A
mode of establishing immunitas for a state was the conferring of the
jus Italicum, which implied quiritarian
ownership of the soil, and consequently exemption from the land-tribute.
This was generally done when the state was declared a
colonia, but a colonia so created did not necessarily possess
this right (
Dig. 50,
15,
8,
6, “Divus
Antoninus Antiochenos colonos fecit salvis tributis” ), although
a partial immunitas might be conferred upon it (Dig. ib. “Divus
Vespasianus Caesarienses colonos fecit non adjecto ut et juris Italici
essent, sed tributum his remisit capitis: sed divus Titus etiam solum
immune factum interpretatus est” ). Many states in Lusitania,
Gaul, Germany, Syria, and
[p. 1.995]Phoenicia, were coloniae
and had the
jus Italicum (Dig.
l.c.).
The immunitas which was conferred on classes of individuals invariably took
the form of an exemption from local burdens, which was granted by Rome
either to Romans or to the members of the particular state by which the
burdens were imposed. In the leges by which Rome recognised the position of
free states she often claimed exemptions for classes of her own citizens;
thus in the Lex Antonia de Termessibus the publicani of Rome are exempted
from the portoria of Termessus (
C. I. L. i. f. 204, 2.35):
and the Roman soldiers in the Empire were exempt from duties on all goods
which they might carry into or purchase in the provinces for their own use
(
Tac. Ann. 13.51; Cod. 4.61, 3). For
another class of munera, personal duties, such as that of being a
tutor, a limit of age was fixed after which
exemptions were permitted (
Dig. 50,
6,
4). But, besides such
special exemptions, general immunities from local burdens were granted to
classes of citizens. Thus during the Empire, and probably by an edict of
Augustus, all who belonged to the senatorial order, i. e. senators and their
direct descendants, were freed from the munera of the community to which
they belonged (
Dig. 50,
1,
22,
5). They were also
freed from the necessity of undertaking its
honores, which in the municipia were generally regarded as
munera, but they retained their position as members of their native state,
and were at liberty to fill the local magistracies if they pleased (
Dig. 50,
1,
23, “municeps esse desinit quantum ad munera, quantum vero
ad honores retinere creditur originem” ). Great difficulty was
experienced, from an early period of the Empire, in finding citizens willing
to undertake public duties in the Italian and provincial towns (see Lex
Malacitana,
C. I. L. ii. n. 1964, c. li.), and the classes of
those who claimed an exemption from such burdens (
excusatio municipalium munerum) were closely scrutinised and
were constantly being narrowed. The effective grounds of such
excusatio were various. One was the number of
children possessed by the claimant, another the exercise of certain
professions which required release from state burdens “ut necessariam
operam publicis utilitatibus exhiberent” (
Dig.
50,
6,
6,
12): thus merchants and ship-owners who supplied the
state with corn, conductores vectigalium, and certain collegia and corpora
of artisans were excused such duties, and a general exemption was granted to
rhetors, philosophers, grammarians, and physicians practising their
profession in their native state and in Rome (
Dig.
27,1, 6, 8; 50, 6,6,12 ;--Cod. 10, 47 and 48).
Special immunities might further be granted to individuals: the right to
confer such immunities was one that Rome reserved to herself both in the
foedera and in the laws other than foedera which regulated the rights of her
allied states. Exemption from military service was the most frequent of
these privileges which she conferred (Lex Jul. Munic.
C. I.
L. i. n. 206, 1. 93, “vacatio rei militaris ex foedere,”
Liv. 23.20,
2), but
the power extended to other munera as well, and in the Lex Acilia
Repetundarum of 123 B.C. “militiae munerisque publici in sua civitate
vacatio” was conferred on any Latin who might convict a Roman
citizen under this law (
C. I. L. i. n. 198, 100.79). During
the Empire the exemption from tribute to Rome might be conferred, in an
individual case, by a beneficium of the princeps (
Suet. Aug. 40).
The acts conferring such immunities on states or individuals were called
beneficia (
Cic.
Phil. 1.1,
3;
7,
17;
2.36,
91
;--
Dig. 50,
15,
4,
3); they were, during the
Republic, ordained or ratified by a decree of the people (
Cic. Phil. 5.4,
10), and were revocable if they were no part of a sworn
foedus. Some immunities of free states might be
recalled by the senate through the terms of the lex data (Lex de Term. 2.6,
“ne quis magistratus milites introducito, nisi senatus nominatim
decreverit” ), and in the case of a foedus being rescinded or
libertas being recalled the immunitates they conferred were necessarily lost
(
Suet. Tib. 41). In the Empire such
beneficia were conferred by the princeps, and the legal principles
regulating them were, that they might be resumed again by the princeps who
conferred them, and that their validity ceased with the princeps who had
granted them (Mommsen,
Staatsr. ii.2 p.
1126 ff.). This latter principle was instituted by Tiberius (
Suet. Tit. 8) and continued down to Titus, who
introduced the change of conferring all such grants by a single edict (Suet.
ib.). This principle was followed by later emperors; but this did not
exclude special investigation of the grounds of certain exemptions, for
instance that of Tyras by Severus (
C. I. L. iii. n. 781).
Prescription was not in every case sufficient to establish a baseless
immunity (
C. I. L. 1. c. “nec facile quae per errorem
aut licentiam usurpata sunt praescriptione temporis confirmentur”
), but the principle was finally developed that immunities granted to states
were understood to continue to subsequent generations (
Dig. 50,
15,
4,
3). Personal immunities granted to individuals
ceased in most cases with their death ( “cum persona
extinguuntur,” Dig.
l.c.; cf.
Dig. 50,
6).
(Mommsen,
Römisches Staatsrecht, ii.2 p. 1126 ff.; iii. p. 684 ff. and p. 474; Marquardt,
Römische Staatsverwaltung, i. pp. 354-358;
Madvig,
Verfassung und Verwaltung des römischen
Rechts, i. p. 84.)
[
A.H.G]
