Police Functions and Public Order

Abstract

Abstract This chapter surveys and analyses major trends in Roman law enforcement and approaches to public order. Chronological coverage runs from the early Republic through later Antiquity, but especially concentrates on the late Republic and early Principate. The overall focus is on society’s responses to perceived challenges to public order, and the state institutions which engaged in policing in Rome, Italy and the provinces of the Roman Empire. While non-institutional self-help was important, emperors, governors, city magistrates, and other power-holders frequently turned to institutional policing to counter crime and threats to social order or state power. Scrutinizing Roman attempts to reinforce public order highlights often overlooked ambitions of the Roman state.

Cite this work

No public copy is stored for this record, so only the metadata is cited.

Stored only when both papers are in the corpus — 22 citations exist upstream.

Papers that cite the same references — the relational fallback while embeddings are still backfilling.