VIS
VIS Laws were passed at Rome for the purpose of making various
acts of violence criminal. The LEX PLOTIA or PLAUTIA, perhaps named after M. Plautius Silvanus,
B.C. 89, appears to have first made
vis the
subject of a special judicium publicum, crimes of violence having previously
only been punished when they could be brought under the head of
majestas or of the
crimen de
sicariis et veneficis. The Lex Plautia was enacted against
those who devastated houses, or who occupied public places and carried arms,
or who attempted to influence the magistrates and senate by assembling
bodies of armed men (
Cic. Att. 2.2. 4;
de harusp. Resp. 8, 15;
pro Cael. 1, 1;
the dissertation of Waechter,
Neues Archiv des
Criminalrechts,, vol. xiii., reprinted in
Orellii
Onomasticon).
Besides other subsidiary laws under the Republic on the subject of
vis, the nature of which is doubtful, there was a
Lex Julia of the dictator Caesar, which made certain kinds of vis subject to
aquae et ignis interdictio (
Cic. Phil. 1.9,
21). Under Augustus the law concerning vis was the subject of two
Juliae leges, which consolidated previous enactments and became the basis of
subsequent laws. These leges were respectively entitled
de vi publica and
de vi privata.
There has been considerable difference of opinion as to the meaning of the
distinction thus made between vis publica and vis privata. The explanation
of some writers is that vis publica was vis exercised by public persons, as
by magistrates, while vis privata was that of private individuals. Another
view is that vis was
publica when deadly
weapons were employed,
privata when they were
not. The most probable explanation is that originally vis publica meant such
vis as was an open violation of a right of the state; vis privata, on the
other hand, would be vis which seemed mainly to affect an individual right,
though it was made criminal as interfering with the function of the state in
maintaining public order (cf. Rein,
cit. infr.). It
is to be remembered, however, that various acts of vis which under the
Julian laws were treated as vis privata, were subsequently made vis publica,
in order to punish them with greater severity. Hence we find acts mentioned
by Paulus (
cit. infr.) as vis privata included in
the Digest under vis publica.
The Lex de Vi Publica did not apply, as the title might seem to import,
exclusively to acts against the public peace, and it is not possible to
define it except by enumerating its chief provisions (cf. Paul.
l.c.; Dig.
cit. infr.).
According to the law of the Digest, it was vis publica to collect arms
(
tela) in a house or in a villa except for
the purpose of hunting, or going a journey or a voyage, the word
tela being extensively interpreted so as to be
equivalent to
arma; to attack houses with armed
men; to evict a person with an armed force (
hominibus
armatis); to appear in court or in a public ssembly with arms
for the purpose of intimidation; for a candidate to attempt to influence an
election by assembling a mob (
turba) or a gang
of slaves; to cause a mob to assemble for various unlawful purposes; to
interfere in various ways with the due administration of justice, as by
preventing judices from exercising their functions in security, or by
forcibly hindering an accused person from going to Rome to take his trial on
the day fixed for it ( “ne quis reum vinciat impediatve, quominus
intra certum tempus adsit” ); to assault or insult ambassadors;
for a magistrate to abuse his power by causing a Roman citizen to be
tortured (cf. Acts 23.25), or to be executed without allowing an appeal to
Rome (cf. Acts 25.10-12); for a magistrate to compel people to pay illegal
taxes ( “qui nova vectigalia exercet” ); to interfere by force
with the burial of a person; to commit rape; to compel a person by force to
promise games or gifts to the people, &c.
The punishment for the violation of the Lex Julia de vi publica was
aquae et ignis interdictio (subsequently
deportatio in insulam), except in the case of
attacking and plundering houses or villas with an armed band, in which case
the punishment was death; and the penalty was the same for carrying off a
woman, married or unmarried. The cases enumerated in the Digest as falling
within the penalties of the Lex Julia de vi privata, are cases where the act
was of less atrocity: for instance, if a man got a number of men together
for a riot, which ended in the
[p. 2.972]beating of a
person, but not in his death, he came within the penalties of the Lex de Vi
Privata.
It was also a case of vis privata when persons assembled in order to prevent
a person being brought before the Praetor. The SENATUSCONSULTUM VOLUSIANUM extended the penalties of the lex to
those who maintained another in his suit, with a view of sharing the damages
awarded to him. The penalty of the law was also extended by imperial
enactments to the offence of wrecking ships. It was vis privata to take the
law into one's own hands by an act of violence. Thus a creditor who entered
on the property of his debtor, which was not hypothecated to him, unless
under judicial authority, was guilty of this offence. The penalties of this
lex were the loss of a third part of the offender's property; and he was
also declared to be incapable of being a senator, or decurio, or a judex; by
a senatusconsultum, the name of which is not given, he was incapacitated
from enjoying any honour,
quasi infamis. (
Dig. 48,
6,
7; Cod. 9.12, 13; Paul.
Sent. rec. 5.26; Rein,
Das Criminalrecht der Römer, p. 732,
&c.; Walter,
Geschichte d. R. R.; Stephen,
History of the Criminal Law of England, i. pp. 16, 17.)
[
G.L] [
E.A.W]
