latrones - Get a Free Blog

BANDITS IN THE ROMAN EMPIRE
symptoms, of imperial crisis – occur ever more frequently. Also, in comparison
with attested cases of the preceding period, the extent of these
incidents was so great that they precipitated political developments and
military countermeasures, like Marcus Aurelius’ naval operations noted above.
The trend begins in the Severan period, though, as P. Hertz has recently
shown, earlier research exaggerated its extent. 86 I will not pursue it here,
since this list of cases is not meant to be a comprehensive collection of
material. Rather my intention has been to show from a selection of evidence
that even during that period of imperial history which was, according to the
over-optimistic assessment of one modern historian of the Ancient World,
citing the words of Edward Gibbon – ‘the period during the history of the
world during which the condition of the human race was most happy and
prosperous’ 87 – travellers by sea faced the danger of pirates just as frequently
as travellers by land faced that of highwaymen. Plutarch was probably correct
when he said that the only person who could live free from the fear of
bandits was the one who stayed at home. 88
And even the home was under threat from latrones. In Rome, during public
shows when most inhabitants left their homes empty, Augustus set up
watch stations throughout the city ‘to prevent it falling a prey to footpads
because of the few people who remained at home’. 89 Pliny the Elder tells
us that, once upon a time, the plebs urbana used to simulate some view of
greenery by hanging transparent pictures of gardens in their window openings,
but that they had been forced to give up the illusion by an increase in
burglary, instead securing their windows with shutters. 90
Further evidence for the ubiquity of bandits is provided by the grave
inscriptions of their victims. As Brent Shaw has pointed out, it is telling
that a more or less uniform epigraphic formula was employed throughout
the whole of the Roman Empire for death at the hands of bandits: interfectus
or interfecta a latronibus. 91 This fate befell people of all social groups and ages.
Even a gladiator, a survivor of four combats looking forward to victory in
his fifth, fell victim to latrones. 92 At one place in the Julian Alps, which
probably did not acquire the ill-omened name of Scelerata (‘Badlands’) without
reason, a senior centurion (princeps) of Legio XIII Gemina was slain by
latrones; 93 in Autun, the same fate befell a private of the Twenty-Second
Legion. In Trier is buried a runner of the imperial post (nuncius Augusti, velox
pede cursor), whose cause of death is given as ‘entrapped by the trickery of
bandits’ (deceptus fraude latronum). 94 In Rome, the same thing happened to a
man and his seven foster children (alumni). 95 The advice of Roman writers
not to travel with valuables finds tragic confirmation in the case of a 10year-old
girl, murdered ‘because of her jewellery’ (ornamentorum causa). 96 There
is an exception in a case where, of a woman killed by bandits (interfecta [a
lat]ro[nibus]), it is also stated that she ‘was avenged’ (et vindicata). 97 However,
this report of vengeance wreaked on the criminals offers scant comfort and is
most unusual.
24