DELATO´RES
DELATO´RES This term was originally applied to those
who gave notice to the officials of the treasury of moneys that had become
due to the treasury. (The verb
deferre is in
classical Latin always joined with
nomen when
used in this sense; it is only later that it takes an accusative of the
person charged.) It subsequently received a wider application. A
delator was not identical with our
“informer;” the term covered two classes, one consisting of
those who themselves acted as prosecutors, the other of those who simply
gave information. The legislature of Augustus gave the first stimulus to the
habit of delation, by granting pecuniary rewards to those who secured the
conviction of offenders against his laws relating to marriage (
Tac. Ann. 3.28). The Lex Julia de maiestate,
by rewarding the successful prosecutor with a fourth part of the estate of
the condemned (
Tac. Ann. 4.20), gave a fatal
encouragement to this class; and although Tiberius appears to have
endeavoured at first to check the practice (ib. 1.73), it became during his
reign a veritable scourge; and as his suspicious temper developed, he
actually encouraged them (ib. 4.30, “delatores, genus hominum publico
exitio refertum et ne poenis quidem satis coercitum, per praemia
eliciebantur” ). Caligula at the beginning of his reign
negavit se delatoribus aures habere (Suet.
Calig. 15), and Nero reduced the rewards of those who
prosecuted offenders against the Papian law to the legal fourth part (
Suet. Nero 10). Titus severely punished them
(
Suet. Tit. 8); Domitian at first followed
his example (
Suet. Dom. 9), but soon proved
ready to use them as the tools of his tyrannous greed. They were again
banished by Trajan (Plin.
Paneg. 34), and denounced by a
rescript of Constantine (Cod. 10.11, 5). But the need of this constant
repression proves what a standing evil this class must have been to the
state. (Cf. Mayor's notes on Juvenal, 1.33-36, 4.48, 10.70; Rein,
Criminalrecht, 817-820; Geib,
Röm.
Criminal process, 350-2.)
[
A.S.W]
