How Many Roman Senators Were Ever Prosecuted?: The Evidence from the Late Republic

Abstract

HOW LIKELY WAS IT that a Roman senator in the Late Republic was ever prosecuted during his lifetime? Lily Ross Taylor implies that it was a very frequent occurrence:1 A man expected from his friends not only support at the polls but aid in the perils of public life, the unending prosecutions brought from political motives by his personal enemies, his inimici, his rivals in the contest for office and for the manifold rewards of public life. P. A. Brunt attempts to refute her contention. After quoting part of Taylor's statement above, he writes:2 Yet most of the principes in Cicero's time had never been arraigned in the courts. The purpose of this article is to propose a solution to this debate on the frequency of prosecution by marshalling and analyzing the facts at our disposal. These two opposing statements have quantitative implications, although neither uses actual numbers. Taylor claims that men in general (and it is clear from the context that she means nobles) had to deal with politically motivated prosecutions aimed against them. Brunt counters that