Original scientific paper
The Case of the Roxolani King Rasparaganus: Relegatio in Insulam in Roman Criminal Law
Ivana Jaramaz Reskušić
; Pravni fakultet, Sveučilište u Zagrebu, Zagreb, Hrvatska
Ivan Milotić
; Pravni fakultet, Sveučilište u Zagrebu, Zagreb, Hrvatska
Abstract
The penalty of banishment in the Roman criminal system could take one of three forms:
exilium, deportatio and relegatio. These penalties received adequate elaboration by Roman
jurists, though their appearance in epigraphic evidence referring to actual cases is rare. In this
paper, the authors provide an analysis of two inscriptions which record the criminal case of
the Roxolani King Rasparaganus, who was defeated by the Roman Emperor Hadrian during
his military campaign in Sarmatia in 117/118 AD and subsequently sentenced to relegation to
Uljanik Island situated in Pula Bay. The case is of great interest because it reveals the general
development of the Roman criminal concept of relegation and the particular degree of its
development in the first decades of the 2nd century AD. Furthermore, the case is interesting
because relegation can be analysed in an actual case and, finally, because the case of King
Rasparaganus records a range of goals that the Roman criminal policy intended to achieve by
resorting to the penalty of relegation of an individual to a particular island. In this paper the
authors affirm the epigraphic evidence of Roman provenance as a source which may be profitably
used to study criminal institutes in ancient Rome.
Keywords
Roman criminal law; Hadrian; Sarmatia; Rasparaganus; exilium; deportatio; relegatio; Istria; Uljanik Island
Hrčak ID:
232677
URI
Publication date:
1.10.2019.
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