¿Peor que un esclavo? Hostis publicus en la época ciceroniana

  1. Duplá Ansuategui, Antonio 1
  1. 1 Universidad del País Vasco/Euskal Herriko Unibertsitatea
    info

    Universidad del País Vasco/Euskal Herriko Unibertsitatea

    Lejona, España

    ROR https://ror.org/000xsnr85

Book:
Actes du XXXV Colloque du Groupe de Recherches sur l’Esclavage depuis l’Antiquité. Los espacios de la esclavitud y la dependencia desde la antigüedad.

Publisher: Persée - Portail des revues scientifiques en SHS

ISBN: 978-2-84867-521-3

Year of publication: 2015

Volume: 35

Issue: 1

Pages: 423-437

Type: Book chapter

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Abstract

Following Appianus’ narrative in his History of Rome, the citizens included in the lists of proscriptions in 43 B. C. pleaded with their slaves in vain for help and mercy, in a situation of chaos, violent repression and brutal alteration of property rights. This transformation of the social relationships reflects the peculiar status of these citizens who, after the triumvirate’s decision, had lost all their rights and could be put to death by anyone. This new status is connected to a controversial figure of the last republican century, that of hostis publicus, created by a senate’s decree for the first time in the civil war between Sulla’s partisans and those of Marius. This paper deals with the analysis of this figure, his polemical legal character and the alteration it entails of the civic condition of a citizen by a purely political procedure, without any legal sentence. In practice, the people involved find themselves in a no-man’s land, in a situation legally and socially far more unprotected than that of slaves.