Ambitus
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In ancient Roman law, ambitus was a crime of political corruption, mainly a candidate's attempt to influence the outcome (or direction) of an election through bribery or other forms of soft power. The Latin word ambitus is the origin of the English word "ambition" which is another of its original meanings; ambitus was the process of "going around and commending oneself or one's protégés to the people," an activity liable to unethical excesses.[1] In practice, bringing a charge of ambitus against a public figure became a favored tactic for undermining a political opponent.
The Lex Baebia was the first law criminalizing electoral bribery, instituted by M. Baebius Tamphilus during his consulship in 181 BC. The passage of Rome's first sumptuary law the previous year suggests that the two forms of legislation are related; both were aimed at curbing wealth-based inequities of power and status within the governing classes.[2] The temptation to indulge in bribery indicates that the traditional patron-client relationship was insufficient to gather enough votes to win election.[3]
The word ambitus for electoral corruption is a general term for the crime; defendants would have been charged under a specific
The rhetorical tactics of
During the
(1st–2nd centuries AD) recoiled from the rough-and-tumble of electoral politics and ambitus:For the sake of these mighty and dignified offices and honours you kiss the hands of another man's slaves — and are thus the slaves of men who are not free themselves. … If you wish to be consul you must give up your sleep, run around, kiss men's hands, rot away at other men's doors … send presents to many and daily xenia [guest-gifts] to some. And what is the result?
Circus, and distributing meals in little baskets.[8]
Bribery of a person already holding office was covered by laws de repetundae; provincial governors were particularly susceptible to such charges.[9]
Terminology
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 (candidus) 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.[1] 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 name, 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, such as shows or feasts. Candidates sometimes left Rome and visited the coloniae and municipia, in which the citizens had the suffrage; thus Cicero proposed to visit the Cisalpine towns, when he was a candidate for the consulship.[2]
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.[3] The word for ambitus in the Greek writers is δεκασμός (dekasmos). Money was paid for votes; and in order to ensure secrecy and secure the elector, persons called interpretes were employed to make the bargain, sequestres to hold the money until it was to be paid,[4] and divisores to distribute it.[5] The offence of ambitus was a matter which belonged to the judicia publica, and the enactments against it were numerous.[6] The earliest enactment that is mentioned simply forbade persons "to add white to their dress", with a view to an election (432 BC).[7] This seems to mean using some white sign or token on the dress, to signify that a man was a candidate. The object of the law was to check ambitio, the name for going about to canvass, in place of which ambitus was subsequently employed. Still the practice of using a white dress on occasion of canvassing was usual, and appears to have given origin to the application of the term candidatus to one who was a petitor.[8]
Laws and restrictions
A Lex Poetelia (358 BC) forbade candidates canvassing on market days,[9] and going about to the places in the country where people were collected. The law was passed mainly to check the pretensions of novi homines, of whom the nobiles were jealous. By the Lex Cornelia Baebia (181 BC), those who were convicted of ambitus were incapacitated from being candidates for ten years.[10] The Lex Acilia Calpurnia (67 BC) was intended to suppress treating of the electors and other like matters: the penalties were fine, exclusion from the Roman Senate, and perpetual incapacity to hold office.[11] The lex Tullia was passed in the consulship of Cicero (63 BC) for the purpose of adding to the penalties of the Acilia Calpurnia.[12] The penalty under this lex was ten years' exile. This law forbade any person to exhibit public shows for two years before he was a candidate. It also forbade candidates hiring persons to attend them and be about their persons.
In the second consulship of M. Licinius Crassus and Cn. Pompeius Magnus (55 BC) the Lex Licinia was passed. This lex, which is entitled De Sodalitiis, did not alter the previous laws against bribery; but it was specially directed against a particular mode of canvassing, which consisted in employing agents (sodales) to mark out the members of the several tribes into smaller portions, and to secure more effectually the votes by this division of labour. This distribution of the members of the tribes was called decuriatio.[13] It was an obvious mode of better securing the votes.[14] The mode of appointing the judices in trials under the Lex Licinia was also provided by that lex. They were called Judices Editicii, because the accuser or prosecutor nominated four tribes, and the accused was at liberty to reject one of them. The judices were taken out of the other three tribes; but the mode in which they were taken is not quite clear. The penalty under the Lex Licinia was exile, but for what period is uncertain.
The Lex Pompeia (52 BC), passed when
The popular forms of election were observed during the time of Augustus. Under Tiberius they ceased. Tacitus observes, "The comitia were transferred from the campus to the patres," the senate.[18]
While the choice of candidates was thus partly in the hands of the senate, bribery and corruption still influenced the elections, though the name of ambitus was, strictly speaking, no longer applicable. But in a short time, the appointment to public offices was entirely in the power of the emperors; and the magistrates of Rome, as well as the populus, were merely the shadow of that which had once a substantial form. A Roman jurist, of the imperial period (Modestinus), in speaking of the Julia Lex de Ambitu, observes, "This law is now obsolete in the city, because the creation of magistrates is the business of the princeps, and does not depend on the pleasure of the populus; but if any one in a municipium should offend against this law in canvassing for a sacerdotium or magistratus, he is punished, according to a senatus consultum, with infamy, and subjected to a penalty of 100 aurei".[19]
The laws that have been enumerated are probably all that were enacted, at least all of which any notice is preserved. Laws to repress bribery were made while the voting was open; and they continued to be made after the vote by ballot was introduced at the popular elections by the
The trials for ambitus were numerous in the time of the republic.[22] The oration of Cicero in defence of L. Murena, who was charged with ambitus, and that in defence of Cn. Plancius, who was tried under the Lex Licinia, are both extant .[23]
See also
References
- ^ Fergus Millar, The Crowd in Rome in the Late Republic (University of Michigan Press, 1998, reprinted 2005), p. 216 online. The Latin word derives from ambi-, "both, around," and a substantive form of the verb ire, "to go."
- ^ William Vernon Harris, War and Imperialism in Republican Rome, 327–70 B.C. (Oxford University Press, 1979, 1985), p. 89, note 3 online.
- ^ Fergus Millar, "The Political Character of the Classical Roman Republic, 200–151 B.C.," Journal of Roman Studies 74 (1984), pp. 10 (especially note 36) and 11.
- ^ Michael C. Alexander, Trials in the Late Roman Republic, 149 BC to 50 BC (University of Toronto Press, 1990), pp. xi–xii.
- ^ Polybius 6.56.4.
- ^ Richard Alexander Bauman, "The Leges iudiciorum publicorum and Their Interpretation in the Republic, Principate, and Later Empire," Aufstieg und Niedergang der römischen Welt II (de Gruyter, 1980), p. 125 online.
- ^ James M. May, Trials of Character: The Eloquence of Ciceronian Ethos (University of North Carolina Press, 1988), n.p. online et passim, particularly commentary on the speech Pro Murena. See also Millar, The Crowd in Rome in the Late Republic, p. 99.
- ^ Epictetus 4.1.148 and 4.10.20–21, as quoted by Fergus Millar, "Epictetus and the Imperial Court," in Rome the Greek World, and the East: Government Society, and Culture in the Roman Empire (University of North Caroline Press, 2004), pp. 112–113 online.
- P.A. Brunt, "Charges of Provincial Maladministration undery the Early Principate," Historia 10 (1961) 189–227.
Notes
- ^ Cic. pro Murena, c34
- ^ Cic. ad Att. i.1
- ^ Cicero de Oratore. ii.25; and cf. pro Murena, c36
- ^ Cic. pro Cluentio. 26
- ^ Cic. ad Att. i.16
- ^ None of the penalties mentioned in this article include the capital penalty. The generally reliable historian Polybius, however, a close first-hand observer of Roman polity, flatly states that at Rome the penalty for bribery was death (Histories, 6.56.4).
- ^ Liv. iv.25
- ^ Cretata ambitio, Persius, Sat. v.177; Polyb. x.4 ed. Bekker
- ^ Liv. vii.15
- ^ Liv. xl.19; Schol. Bob. p361
- Dion Cassiusxxxvi.21
- ^ Dion Cassius xxxvii.29; Cic. pro Murena, c23
- ^ Cic. pro Plancio, c18
- ^ In the main this is rightly explained by Rein, but completely misunderstood by Wunder and others. Furthermore, Drumann confounds the decuriatio with the coitio or coalition of candidates to procure votes (Geschichte Roms, vol. iv p93).
- ^ Suet. Caes. c41
- ^ Dion Cassius liv.16; Suet. Oct. 34
- ^ Dion Cassius lv.5
- ^ Tacitus, Annal. i.15
- ^ Dig. 48 14
- ^ Cic. pro Plancio, c23, pro Murena, c23
- ^ Cic. ad Att. i.16
- ^ A list of them is given by Rein.
- ^ Rein, Criminalrecht der Römer, where all the authorities are collected; Cic. Pro Plancio, ed. Wunder
- This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chambers, Ephraim, ed. (1728). "Ambitus". Cyclopædia, or an Universal Dictionary of Arts and Sciences (1st ed.). James and John Knapton, et al.
- Smith, William, D.C.L., LL.D. A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities. John Murray, London, 1875.
- Peter Nadig, Ardet Ambitus. Untersuchungen zum Phänomen der Wahlbestechungen in der römischen Republik, Peter Lang, Frankfurt am Main - New York 1997 (Prismata VI), ISBN 3-631-31295-4