Ambĭtus
Literally “a going about,” and cannot, perhaps, be more nearly
expressed than by our word
canvassing. After the plebs had formed a
distinct class at Rome, and when the whole body of the citizens had become very greatly
increased, we frequently read, in the Roman writers, of the great efforts which it was
necessary for candidates to make in order to secure the votes of the citizens. At Rome, as in
every community into which the element of popular election enters, solicitation of votes, and
open or secret influence and bribery, were among the means by which a candidate secured his
election to the offices of state.
Whatever may be the authority of the piece entitled
Q. Ciceronis de Petitione
Consulatus ad M. Tullium Fratrem, it seems to present a pretty fair picture of those
arts and means by which a candidate might lawfully endeavour to secure the votes of the
electors, and also some intimation of those means which were not lawful, and which it was the
object of various enactments to repress.
A candidate was called
petitor, and his opponent, with reference to
him,
competitor. A candidate (
candidatus) was so
called from his appearing in the public places, such as the fora and Campus Martius,
before his fellow-citizens, in a whitened toga. On such occasions, the candidate was attended
by his friends (
deductores), or followed by the poorer citizens (
sectatores), who could in no other manner show their good-will or give their
assistance. The word
assiduitas expressed both the continual presence of
the candidate at Rome and his continual solicitations. The candidate, in going his rounds or
taking his walk, was accompanied by a
nomenclator, who gave him the names
of such persons as he might meet: the candidate was thus enabled to address them by their
names—an indirect compliment which could not fail to be generally gratifying to the
electors. The candidate accompanied his address with a shake of the hand (
prensatio). The term
benignitas comprehended generally any kind
of treating, as shows, feasts, etc.
That ambitus, which was the object of several penal enactments, taken as a generic term,
comprehended the two species,
ambitus and
largitiones (bribery).
Liberalitas and
benignitas
are opposed by Cicero, as things allowable, to
ambitus and
largitio, as things illegal. Money was paid for votes; and in order to insure secrecy
and secure the elector, persons called
interpretes were employed to make
the bargain,
sequestres to hold the money till it was to be paid, and
divisores to distribute it. The offence of ambitus was a matter which
belonged to the
iudicia publica, and the enactments against it were
numerous. Of these the best known are the Lex Aemilia Balbia (B.C. 182); the Lex Cornelia
Fulvia (B.C. 159); the Lex Acilia Calpurnia (B.C. 67); the Lex Tullia (B.C. 63); the Lex
Aufidia (B.C. 61); the Lex Licinia (B.C. 58); and the Lex Iulia de ambitu under Augustus. The
penalties prescribed by these laws varied from exile, and exclusion from the Senate, to money
fines. The Lex Licinia made
sodalicium, or
“treating,” an offence. By the time of Augustus, ambitus in its proper
sense had disappeared, in consequence of the transfer of the elections from the Comitia to the
Senate. A list of trials for ambitus under the Republic is given by Rein in his
Criminalrecht der Römer.
