ABSTRACT
This chapter is not concerned with violence as a political weapon, violence organised by the upper classes, but rather with the have-nots whom any sophisticated government represses, whether in 57 BC or AD 139, or even the 1990s. What sort of behaviour was unacceptable enough for someone to be arrested? What class of person could be arrested? How often were arrests made? Accusations of murder, of adultery, of forgery, still less of treason, are not of concern here; by presumption of law everyone knows that these are crimes and refrains from committing them. What sort of behaviour would be brought to the Urban Prefect’s attention? Would there then have been immediate coercitio, that is, administrative discipline by the prefect or tribune, or might a charge have been formulated? The frequency of a particular disorder could lead to its explicit criminalisation.1 Resolutions of the Senate, rather than statute or even edict, might suitably condemn such behaviour.
