latrones - Get a Free Blog

BANDITS IN THE ROMAN EMPIRE
minutely, for many things not worthy of record happened in individual
instances and their recital in detail would serve no useful purpose.
I shall give simply the events worthy of some mention and very
briefly at that, except in the case of those of greatest importance. 15
Ammianus Marcellinus concurred with this approach when he rebutted the
complaint that historians paid no attention to detail and to everyday events.
‘And many similar matters,’ he continued,
which are not in accordance with the principles of history. For it is
wont to detail the highlights of events, not to ferret out the trifling
details of unimportant matters. For whoever wishes to know these
things may hope to be able to count the small indivisible bodies
which fly through space, and to which we give the name of atoms. 16
Given so strong a reluctance, Arrian was a rare, albeit not unique, exception
when he published a biography of the bandit Tillorobos. This, sadly, is no
longer extant. 17
Contemporary assessments of the social importance of banditry in Antiquity
are therefore obtainable from historical and biographical writings only
in exceptional circumstances. By contrast, philosophical and rhetorical works
by Roman authors occasionally offer valuable insights into the topic and
complement certain aspects of the picture provided by the historians. Sometimes,
within the context of discussion of state theory, robber bands were
posited against the concept of government and the awkward question was
raised as to what differentiated states from such bands. St Augustine, at
least, found it difficult to draw a clear line between regna and latrocinia: ‘For
what are robber bands except little kingdoms? The band is also a group of
men governed by the orders of a leader, bound by a social compact, and its
booty divided according to a law agreed upon.’ 18 The recognition that iustitia
was one of the elements that constituted a state and that an expression of
iustitia specific to bandit communities consisted in the regular sharing-out
of booty is something that Augustine borrowed freely from Cicero. The
latter wrote that the influence of justice was indeed so great that not even
someone who supported himself from evil doing or crime could live without
a spark of justice: that even bandits were supposed to have laws, which they
complied with and respected. 19 Cicero was persuaded of the truth of this
view by the case of the Cilician pirates, of whom it was said that among
themselves they showed such selfless fellow feeling that they shared money
and other resources even with wholly unknown battle-companions, as if they
were dealing with their closest relatives. 20 Even if this report is fantasy, at
least it offers an insight into the unfulfilled wishes and longings of a society
in which social constructs such as the patron–client system were no longer
able to provide a basic level of cohesion.
6