Infamia
In ancient Rome, infamia (in-, "not", and fama, "reputation") was a loss of legal or social standing. As a technical term in Roman law, infamia was juridical exclusion from certain protections of Roman citizenship, imposed as a legal penalty by a censor or praetor.[1] In more general usage during the Republic and Principate, infamia was damage to the esteem (aestimatio) in which a person was held socially; that is, to one's reputation. A person who suffered infamia was an infamis (plural infames).
As a legal penalty
Infamia was a form of censure more disgraceful than ignominia, which in its technical sense resulted from the
In addition to
Iniuria (from which English "injury" derives) was a broad category for a wrongful act that could be penalized by infamia, including bodily harm and damage against property or reputation,[7] as well as "affronts to decency" and what would now be called sexual harassment.[8]
Other grounds for infamia included
Consequences
Infames shared some conditions of status with slaves: they could not provide testimony in a court of law, and they were liable to corporal punishment.[10] They could not bring lawsuits to the court on behalf of themselves or others, and they could not run for public office.[11]
The infames
Infamia was an "inescapable consequence" for certain kinds of employment, including that of undertakers, executioners,[12] prostitutes and pimps, entertainers such as actors and dancers, and gladiators.[13] The collective infamia of stage performers, prostitutes, and gladiators arose from the uses to which they put their bodies: by subjecting themselves to public display, they had surrendered the right of privacy and bodily integrity that defined the citizen.[14] The infamia of entertainers did not exclude them from socializing among the Roman elite, and entertainers who were "stars", both men and women, sometimes became the lovers of such high-profile figures as Mark Antony and the dictator Sulla.
Charioteers may or may not have been infames; two jurists of the later Imperial era argue that athletic competitions were not mere entertainment but "seem useful" as instructive displays of Roman strength and virtus.[15] A passive homosexual who was "outed" might be subject to social infamia in the colloquial sense without being socially ostracized, and if a citizen he might retain his legal standing.[16][17]
Religious infamy
In late antiquity, when the Roman Empire had come under Christian rule, infamia was used to punish "religious deviants" such as heretics, apostates, and those who declined to give up their own religious practices and convert to Christianity.[18] The modern
See also
References
- ^ McGinn, Thomas A. J. (1998). Prostitution, Sexuality and the Law in Ancient Rome. Oxford University Press. p. 65ff.
- ^ Adolf Berger, s.v. ignominia and nota censoria, Encyclopedic Dictionary of Roman Law (American Philological Society, 1953, 1991), pp. 491, 598.
- ^ M. W. Frederiksen, "Caesar, Cicero and the Problem of Debt," Journal of Roman Studies 56:1/2 (1966), pp. 134–135.
- ^ Berger, Encyclopedic Dictionary of Roman Law, s.v. furtum, p. 480; rapina, p. 667; vi bona rapta, p. 763.
- De natura deorum3.30.74.
- ^ Berger, Encyclopedic Dictionary of Roman Law, s.v. mandatum, p. 574; depositum, p. 432.
- ^ Berger, s.v. iniuria, Encyclopedic Dictionary of Roman Law, p. 502.
- ^ Nephele Papakonstantinou and Anne Stevens, "Raptus and Roman Law," Clio 52 (2020), p. 24.
- ^ Berger, Encyclopedic Dictionary of Roman Law, s.v. infamia, p. 500.
- ISBN 9780691011783.
- ^ Berger, Encyclopedic Dictionary of Roman Law, s.v. infamia, p. 500.
- ISBN 978-0-472-00361-7.
- ISBN 9780691011783.
- ^ Edwards, "Unspeakable Professions," pp. 66–67.
- ^ Richlin, Amy (1993). "Not before Homosexuality: The Materiality of the cinaedus and the Roman Law against Love between Men". Journal of the History of Sexuality. Vol. 3, no. 4. pp. 550–551, 555ff.
- ISBN 9780691011783.
- ^ Sarah Bond, "Altering Infamy: Status, Violence, and Civic Exclusion in Late Antiquity," Classical Antiquity 33:1 (2014), pp. 1-30
External links
- Smith D.C.L., LL.D, William (1875). "Infamia". A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities. London: John Murray. pp. 634‑636.
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