#canadanus rambles

[1canadanus1]

One of my life's goals is to make the most historically accurate ancient Roman mock trials ever

[1canadanus1]

People need to make more legal dramas set in ancient Rome because most dramatic legal inaccuracies common to legal shows nowadays was actually completely accurate for ancient Rome. They had the freedom back then. They could wander all around the court, neither side had a clue what evidence the other side had, people burst dramatically into tears all the time and cracked extremely inappropriate jokes. We need more legal dramas set in ancient Rome. And more legal comedies. I love legal comedies.

[1canadanus1]

I just read a paper about Roman praetors that is SOOO BAD

[1canadanus1]

cicero are you doing with the burden of proof? youre throwing it into the wrong net. thats your side of the court cicero. wait. youre doing so much better. youre at the correct side of the court now. youve missed the net. the burden of proof has gone out the door. its rolling down the street cicero.

[1canadanus1]

I sometimes wonder what scholarship would look like if our sources were flipped and Cicero largely prosecuted instead. Of course, due to society, he likely never would've been like that (the stigma!) but what if he had? What if the vast majority of our sources about Roman criminal law in the late republic came from the perspective of the prosecution? I think we would have VERY different feelings and ideas.

It's very common for people to say Roman witnesses were unreliable and bribed and biased and partial and prejudicial etc., because that's a very common thing for the defense to say against a prosecution case largely based on witness testimony. In fact, in one of Cicero's extortion defense speeches, he talks about how trustworthy and reliable Roman witnesses are, how witnesses swear oaths to tell the truth and how they are very careful to not be affected by emotion (meanwhile, foreign witnesses don't understand the meaning of the oaths they swear and always lie! In this case the defense had a ton of Roman witnesses and the prosecution had a ton of foreign witnesses, go figure).

Also, people often think that Roman trials put too much focus on irrelevant things. To some extent that is true (character evidence is all but required, though who's to say it wasn't relevant considering the culture and times?), but also, it might just be that we're extrapolating too much from the defense speeches. They were all opening speeches, and since the defense likely did not know much about the charges or the evidence, of course they would seem to dance around the issue sometimes. They don't want to say something that would be destroyed at a later part of the trial, and sometimes they just don't know enough. They would rather focus on something they do know, like the character of the defendant.

Also, the defense got A LOT of time to speak (usually double that of the prosecution) so they had to opportunity to yap about everything tangentially related to the case. Does this mean the entire trial was like this? I don't think so; I think the defense speech just happened to be the most long-winded and irrelevant part of the trial.

The thing I love the most (lying) is when people think the opening speeches were the ONLY part of the trial. That the prosecution spoke and then the defense spoke and then it was done. You're killing me.... and I love how these people never seem worried about how nothing was proven and no evidence was given?

Let me tell you, Roman trials were a lot more than just speeches. In fact, Quintillian said that the other part of the trial (proving the case as opposed to pleading the case) was even more important. You know what they say: "open for show, cross for dough."

[1canadanus1]

I've read every novel that includes references to Roman law (if you know about one I haven't read, then I'd love to take a look, but I'm pretty sure I've read them all. Yes even that old one about the Cluentius case. Yes even I, Vergil, which depicts a young Vergil who is anachronistically worried about his sexuality defend a man for murder. Yes this part in parentheses is getting too long and I'm splitting my original sentence in half. You've probably forgotten it already, haven't you?) and most of them have varying degrees of accuracy.

The Cicero Triology is the most accurate — though it is not a high bar to pass — and I Am Rome is the least accurate. In between are a ton of books with a lot of interesting choices around Roman law. It is common to use civil procedure for criminal cases, and criminal procedure for civil cases in these books.

Anyway, I'm writing a book of my own about Roman lawyers (what else is there for me to write about) and now I'm starting to be slightly more empathetic towards these authors because legal dramas are pretty hard to write! At least if you're not a lawyer or expert in them. A common trope that puzzled me was when the trial would happen a couple days after the crime occurred (such in Roman Mysteries, The Slave Girl From Jerusalem) and now I know that it's obnoxious and tricky to write about trial preparation, at least to me, so no wonder you want to cut it out. I'll just make a plot relevant reason why it's glossed over.

[1canadanus1]

Sometimes you get an urge that only a book about substantive Roman civil law will scratch.

[1canadanus1]

Dear the person who came to the conclusion that Catullus had a threesome with Clodius and Clodia: I want to live inside of your head.