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Two Notes on Immunities: Digest 27, 1, 6, 10 and 11

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 September 2012

Vivian Nutton
Vivian Nutton
Affiliation:
Selwyn College, Cambridge
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Extract

The movement that commonly goes under the name of the Second Sophistic extends far beyond mere literary affectation. It is as much a social phenomenon to be understood within the context of the Roman Empire of the second and early third centuries as a cultural development basing itself upon the models of an earlier Greece. Evidence drawn only from orations and belles-lettres does not suffice to do justice to all its complexities, and recent authors have rightly adduced inscriptional and legal references to supply both background and explanation. Among them Professor Bowersock has discussed with clarity and percipience the immunities granted to sophists and men of learning by successive emperors in the second century, and has attempted to relate these grants to the social and intellectual life of the time. His account of their development is unexceptionable: the lavish immunities given by Hadrian were curtailed by Antoninus Pius, and the modifications of later emperors brought no appreciable change.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Roman Studies , Volume 61 , November 1971 , pp. 52 - 63
Copyright
Copyright ©Vivian Nutton 1971. Exclusive Licence to Publish: The Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies

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References

1 Millar, F., ‘P. Herennius Dexippus: the Greek World and the Third-Century Invasions’, JRS LIX (1969), 12–29Google Scholar; Bowie, E. L., ‘Greeks and their past in the second sophistic’, Past and Present XLVI (1970), 3–41, esp. 35 fCrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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3 Compare the restrictions imposed by him on provincial embassies, Williams, W., ‘Antoninus Pius and Provincial Embassies’, Historia XVI (1967), 470–483Google Scholar.

4 Dig. 27, 1, 6, 10.

5 Bowersock, op. cit. (n. 2), 34.

6 Ibid. 36–41.

7 Dig. 50, 5, 1, 2 (Ulpian, lib. 2 Opinionum). The chief magistrates of provinces, the Asiarchs and Bithyniarchs, and of cities were also freed from the duties of tutela, as were those absent on military service or upon legations: Dig. 27, 1, 6, 14; Dig. 50, 5, 12; Dig. 50, 7, 8, pr. Cf. also Dig. 50, 7, 14 (Ulpian, lib. 74 ad edictum praetoris): ‘Qui libera legatione abest, non videtur reipublicae causa abesse: hic enim non publici commodi causa sed sui abest.’

8 ‘Incolas vero … domicilium facit’ (Hadrian, reported at CJ 10, 39, 7). Note the whole title ‘Ad municipalem et de incolis’. Dig. 50, 1.

9 Dig. 50, 1, 17, 6; 50, 2, 1.

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11 CJ 10, 40, I; 10, 40, 2.

12 Dig. 50, 1, 34; 50, 4, 6, s (Ulpian, lib. 4 de officio proconsulis) differentiates municipes and incolae from mere possessores, cf. Reid, J. S., The Municipalities of the Roman Empire (Cambridge 1913) 518–519Google Scholar.

13 Dig. 50, 1, 17, 4. The principle is upheld by Caracalla in a dispute between Philadelphia and Sardis, IGRR IV, 1619Google Scholar ( = Abbott and Johnson, op. cit., 134.)

14 Notice the following texts: Dig. 50, I, 17, 5 (‘Mere possession of property does not incur munera unless the city has been given special rights’), cf. CJ, 10, 40, 4 and Dig. 50, I, 17, 3; Dig. 50, 1, 17, 12; 50, 1, 17, 20; 50, I, 35, 1 (‘A man who resides within a city's territory but does not use its facilities is not an incola’); Dig. 50. 1. 37, on the governor's jurisdiction in cases of disputed attribution.

15 Dig. 27, 1, 6, 9.

16 As Mommsen made clear in his translation in his edition of the Digest: ‘Attamen valde doctos etiam super numerum et in aliena civitate morantes immunes esse Paulus scribit.’

17 We do not know enough about the composition of city councils to be able to deny that no wealthy man could browbeat his fellow members into granting immunity. Cf. the examples of privilege in litigation given by Kelly, J. M., Roman Litigation (Oxford 1966Google Scholar) and by Garnsey, P., ‘Legal privilege in the Roman Empire’, Past and Present XLI (1968), 3–24CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Social status and legal privilege in the Roman Empire (Oxford 1970Google Scholar).

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20 Or. 50, 75; 78; 84.

21 IGRR IV, 1402; Bowersock, op. cit. 41.

22 Dig. 27, 1, 6, 6; but cf. Dig. 50, 4, 11, 3 and the discussion by Below, K.-H., Der Arzt im römischen Recht (Munich 1953), 42–43Google Scholar, who is probably right to assign Dig. 27, 1, 6, 6 to the compilation of Tribonian.

23 Dig. 50, 9, 1; 50, 13, 1.

24 Dig. 27, 1, 6, 4; 50, 9, 1.

25 Galen (ed. Kühn) XIV, 622. He calculates the size of Pergamum his home city as 40,000, women and slaves included, V, 49.

26 XIV, 624.

27 XIV, 602.

28 Galen, Comm. in Epid. II (ed. Pfaff, ) in Corpus Medicorum Graecorum V, 10, 1, 401 fGoogle Scholar.

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31 CJ 2, 7, 11, 2: 2, 7, 22, 4; 2, 7, 24, 4.

32 Petit, P., Les Étudiants de Libanius (Paris 1957), 154–165Google Scholar.

33 Galen XIV, 649 f.; XIX, 18.

34 Cohn-Haft, L., The public physicians of Ancient Greece (Smith College Studies in History, XLII: Northampton, Mass, 1956), 56–61Google Scholar, and his list of honorary decrees, 76–85.

35 CIL IX, 1655 ( = ILS 6496); NdS 1913, 311.

36 For Priscus, see CIG 2987, where the inscription was erroneously dated to the late first century B.C.; the true date was suggested by Le Bas, P., Voyage Archéologique III (Paris 1870), 161Google Scholar, and confirmed as being shortly after A.D. 160 by Forschungen in Ephesos IV, 3 (Vienna 1951)Google Scholar, no. 27. On Hermophilus see Keil, J. and von Premerstein, A., Denkschriften der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, philo.-hist. Klasse LIV (1911), p. 39Google Scholar, n. 70 ( = IGRR IV, 1278).

37 CIL XIII, 5079 ( = ILS 7786) with which compare the oculist's stamp, Howald, E. and Meyer, E., Die römische Schweiz (Zurich 1940)Google Scholar, n. 446; Dollfus, M. A., ‘L'exercice de l'ophtalmologie à l'époque gallo-romaine’, BSNAF 1963, IIIGoogle Scholar; ‘Ärzteinschriften aus Ephesos,’ JÖAI VIII (1905), 128–138Google Scholar; Wolters, P., ‘Ἀρχίατρος τό δ'’, JÖAI IX (1908), 295Google Scholar; Keil, J., JÖAI XXX (1937), Beiblatt 200Google Scholar.

38 Frag. Vat. 149 restricts the number of doctors in a city who are to possess immunity to five.

39 Dig. 50, 13, 1.

40 Philostratus, Vit. Soph. 300 f.

41 Ibid. 254.

42 Although immunity might be granted, voluntary performance of duties could also be expected: see Aristeides 50, 78; P. Fayum 106; and the evidence collected by Lewis, N., ‘Exemption from Liturgy in Roman Egypt, I’, Actes X congr. intern, de papyrologie (Warsaw 1964), 69–79Google Scholar; II, Atti XI Congr. Pap. (Milan 1966), 512 fGoogle Scholar.

43 Dig. 27, 1, 6, 7. The joke was an old one and reappears at Dig. 50, 5, 8, 4 (Papinian, Lib. 1. Respons.): ‘philosophis qui se frequentes atque utiles per eandem studiorum sectam contendentibus praebent, tutelas, item munera sordida corporalia remitti placuit: non ea quae sumptibus expediuntur: etenim vere philosophantes pecuniam contemnunt, cuius retinendae cupidine fictam adseverationem detegunt.’

44 For these cases, see Philostratus, Vit. Soph. 290; Galen, , Corpus Medicorum Graecorum V, 10, 2, 2, 293 and 413Google Scholar, on which see Pfaff, F., ‘Rufus aus Samaria, Hippokrates-commentator und Quelle Galens’, Hermes LXVII (1932), 356–359Google Scholar; Galen XIX, 48 (Kühn).

45 Dig. 27, 1, 6, 11.

46 Ibid. 50, 5, 9 pr.

47 Compare Ibid. II, 7, 14, 9 (Ulpian, Lib. 25 ad Edictum), ‘fortassis quis possit dicere …’, and Ibid. 9, 4. 8; 39, 2, 13, 2; 47, 2, 41 pr.

48 Honoré, A. M., ‘The Severan lawyers: a preliminary survey’, SDHI XXVIII (1962), 214Google Scholar. Dig. 26, 7, 21 and 27, 1, 6, 9 and 11, show that the work was not completed before the death of Caracalla, but offer no further dating. Νομοθεσίαι may indicate two separate decisions.

49 Dig. 50, 1, 33.

50 De Ruggiero, E., La patria nel diritto pubblico Romano (Rome 1921), 70 and 71Google Scholar, n. 3.

51 Peter, H., ‘Zur Schrift Modestins παραίτησις ἐπτροπῆς καὶ κουρατορίας’,ZSS XXXIII (1912), 511–513Google Scholar; Kunkel, W., Herkunft und soziale Stellung der römischen Juristen, (Weimar 1952), 259–261Google Scholar; Altmann, J., ‘Die Wiedergabe römischen Rechts in griechischer Sprache bei Modestinus de excusationibus’, SDHI XXI (1955), 1–73Google Scholar.

52 Stein, P. G., Regulae Iuris (Edinburgh 1966), 86–88Google Scholar.

53 Carcaterra, A., Le definizioni dei giuristi Romani: metodo, mezzi e fini (Naples 1966), 194 and 205 ffGoogle Scholar.

54 Nörr, D., ‘Origo, Studien zur Orts-, Stadt- und Reichszugehörigkeit in der Antike’, Tijdschrift voor Rechtsgeschiedenis XXXI (1963), 525–600, esp. 577, 580Google Scholar, summarized in P-W Suppl. X (Stuttgart 1965), 433–473Google Scholar. s.v. origo.

55 P. Berl. 13045, 28 f., and see Archiv für Papyrusforschung VII (1923), 240Google Scholar.

56 Aristeides, Or. 26, 61 (Keil).

57 Ibid. 60; 61; 63; 11; 7; 78.

58 Ibid. 100.

59 Sherwin-White, A. N., The Roman Citizenship (Oxford 1933), 184Google Scholar; he treats Aristeides' speech at length on pp. 258–264.

60 Aristeides, , Or. 46, 23Google Scholar.

61 Oliver, J. H., The Ruling Power (Transactions of the American Philosophical Society XLIII, 1953), 871–1003Google Scholar, esp. 889–892. His view was accepted by Bengtson, H., ‘Das Imperium Romanum in griechischer Sicht’, Gymnasium LXXI (1964), 164Google Scholar but denied by J. Bleicken, ‘Der Preis des Aelius Aristeides auf das römische Weltreich’, NGA 1966, 243, n. 40. See also Nörr, art. cit. (note 54), 584, 590 ff., and Imperium und Polis in der hohen Prinzipatszeit (Munich 1966), 94 ffGoogle Scholar.

62 Aristeides, Or. 46, 23.

63 Dio, Or. 32, 36.

64 Pliny, , NH III, 39Google Scholar.

65 Dio., , Or. 41, 9Google Scholar.

66 Millar, F., A study of Cassius Dio (Oxford 1964), 104 fGoogle Scholar.

67 This formulation is that of Nörr, art. cit. (note 54), 555; see also Sherwin-White, A. N., Roman Society and Roman Law in the New Testament (Oxford 1963), 181 ffGoogle Scholar. and Crook, J. A., Law and Life of Rome (London 1967), 37–40Google Scholar.

68 Cicero, , De Legibus II, 2, 5Google Scholar; Nörr, art. cit. (note 54), 555 f. and 583 f. See also M. Hammond, ‘Germana Patria’, HSCP (1951), 148 and 159, and Braunert, H., ‘Verfassungsnorm und Verfassungswirklichkeit im spätrepublikanischen Rom, eine Interpretation zu Ciceros Rede für Balbus’, Der altsprachliche Unterricht IX (1966), 51–73Google Scholar.

69 IGRR IV, 33, col. b, 33; FIRA 2I, 55.

70 Nörr, art. cit. (note 54), 566 f.; Gaudemet, J., ‘L'étranger au Bas-Empire,’ Recueils de la société Jean Bodin, I (Brussels 1958), 209–210Google Scholar.

71 Fries, B., Forum in der Rechtssprache (Munich 1963), 34–46Google Scholar.

72 Dig. 48, 22, 18 pr. = Basilica (ed. Heimbach) 60, 54, 19; the same text appears in the scholium to Bas. 21, 2, 2.; Lenel, O., Palingenesia Iuris Civilis I (Leipzig 1889), 93–94Google Scholar, fr. 53. On the date, Bonini, R., I' libri de cognitionibus’ di Callistrato, I (Milan 1964), 14–15Google Scholar.

73 Bonini, op. cit. p. 84, n. 1, promises a discussion of the transmission of this text; compare the treatment of Dig. 48, 22, 18, 1 by Brasiello, U., La repressione penale in diritto romano (Naples 1937), 320Google Scholar, n. 87.

74 Op. cit. 282, 307, citing Dig. 48, 22, 7 pr. and 48, 22, 14 pr. Compare the definition of Marcian, , Dig. 48, 22, 5Google Scholar.

75 Suet., , Claudius 23, 2Google Scholar: ‘sanxit ut … ii, quibus a magistratibus provinciae interdicerentur, urbe quoque et Italia summoverentur.’ Cf. Braginton, M. V., ‘Exile under the Roman Emperors’, CJ XXXIX (1944), 391–407Google Scholar, and Dig. 3, 2, 2, 4; 27, 1, 8, 9; 48, 22, 7, 11.

76 Dig. 48, 22, 7, 15.

77 Dig. 48, 22, 13; 27, 1, 8, 9 ( = F. Vat. 177a); 3, 2, 2, 4.

78 Scholiast on Bas. 21, 2, 2; Ulpian, , Dig. 48, 22, 7, 10Google Scholar.

79 De Ruggiero, op. cit. (note 50), 70 f.

80 The ban on relegati residing in the same place as the Emperor is paralleled by Dig. 3, 2, 2, 4, but the addition of ‘any place on the emperor's route’ is found only in the Basilica and its scholia. Both this and the following explanatory sentence imply that the emperor regularly moved around accompanied by his comitatus. Although the emperor in the late second century travelled about, this was a time of crisis, and Dig. 48, 22, 18 pr. appears to accept this as a normal situation. As for ‘est enim princeps pater patriae’, this fits uneasily with what precedes, and may be a late and antiquarian addition.

81 The idea of Rome as βασιλεύουσα was already common in the second century: see Athenaeus, Deipn. 98 C; IG XIV, 1109 (time of Antoninus Pius); IG XIV, 830 (A.D. 174), and the comments of J. and Robert, L., REG LXXI (1958), p. 306Google Scholar. The reference in Liddell—Scott—Jones to Galen, XIV, 796 for the use of βασιλίς is unfounded. Although Dig. 50, 1, 33 forms the introductory superscription to Schulz's, F. chapter on ‘Nation’ in his Principles of Roman Law (Oxford, 1936Google Scholar), he does not attempt to work out its implications or problems. The reference to Rome as communis patria at CT 6, 2, 25 reflects the excessive deference of the emperors towards the senate of Rome, and is too late in date to affect the present discussion.

82 Dig. 50, 5, 9 pr.

83 CJ 10 62: Dig. 50, 4, 3 pr.

84 De Ruggiero, op. cit. (note 50), 71.

85 Dig. 27, 1, 6, 1 and 5.

86 Dig. 27, 1, 8, 9 and 27, 9, 5, 12; Institutes 1, 25, 15.

87 Suetonius, Julius 42, cf. Cassius Dio LIII, 30, 3; Suetonius, Augustus 59. The doubts of Gummerus, H., Der Ärztestand im romischen Reiche I, (Helsinki 1932), 7Google Scholar, still remain unallayed, and there is slight evidence that any citizen doctor in the East obtained his citizenship by residing in Rome; see below, n. 99.

88 Dig. 27, 1, 6, 12. These regulations do not mean, as Scarborough, J. implies, Roman Medicine (London 1969), 216Google Scholar, n. 87, that the physician- or lawyer- teacher had to perform in his home town, or that he was a ‘politician’.

89 The whole section CT 13, 3 is relevant, showing how the immunities of doctors keep pace with those of teachers and professors and how those of the imperial archiatri, whose relationship with the emperor may have been more intimate, even outstrip them. This will have been helped by the doctors' participation in the Second Sophistic movement, Bowersock, op. cit. (note 2), 59–75. The comments of Scarborough, op. cit. esp. 109–122, on the social position of doctors make no allowance for the diversity of social groups within the Empire.

90 A useful collection of material will be found in Martin, T. O., ‘Aids to education in the Roman Empire,’ Seminar X (1952), 60–70Google Scholar. See also CT 13, 4, 1 and 2, and Pharr, C., ‘Roman Legal Education’, CJ XXXIV (1939), 257–270Google Scholar.

91 On civic salaries in general see Dig. 34, 1, 16, I; 50, 9, 4, 2; and CIL XI, 3087 ( = ILS 2542).

92 CIL VI, 29805 ( = ILS 5581) and 9566 ( = ILS 7817): see also Pazzini, A., ‘La Schola Medicorum ad Aesquilinas e l'origine di una falsa denominazione’, Atti III Congr. di Studi Rotnani I (Rome 1935), 467–472Google Scholar. On Valentinian's reform, CT 13, 3, 8 and 9 (cf. Symmachus, Rel. 27) and the emendations and discussions by Pazzini, A., L'organizzazione sanitaria in Roma imperiale (Rome 1940), 12Google Scholar, and Robert, L., Hellenica V (Paris 1950), 25–27Google Scholar.

93 Public doctors, archiatri, only appear in the fourth and later centuries, CIL VI, 9562–5.

94 Galen, , Corpus Medicorum Graecorum V, 10, 22, 486Google Scholar; X, 90 9 f. (Kühn). Schoene, H., ‘τὸ τοũ Τραιάνου γυνμάσιον bei Galenos’, Hermes LII (1917), 105–111Google Scholar.

95 CIL VI, 9477 ( = ILS 7806) ‘D. M. Valeriae Berecundae iatromeae regionis suae primae…’ The language suggests at least a date in the fourth century, possibly later: ‘prima’ may refer to the number of the region, or, more probably, to her pre-eminence. The collegium of Valentinian was based upon the regions.

96 Note the views of Galen on the size of Rome in De partibus artis medicativae 62 (CMG Supplementum Orientate II, 29). On the whole question of the immunity of doctors, see also Below, op. cit. (note 22), 41–51.

97 P. Oxy. 40, which has been re-edited with a new and important reading by Youtie, H. C., ‘A reconsideration of P. Ox. 1, 40’, Studien zur Papyrologie und antiken Wirtschaftsgeschichte: Festschrift für F. Oertel (Bonn 1964), 20–29Google Scholar. This was unknown to Scarborough whose discussion, op. cit. (n. 88), 100, is therefore outdated; even so, I am unable to agree with the conclusions that he draws from this payprus, which he ascribes to ‘the declining years of the Empire’ when ‘the dry rot was apparent (in native medicine?)’.

98 Galen, XIV 621 ff. (Kühn).

99 Of nearly three hundred doctors in the Eastern provinces recorded epigraphically before A.D. 212, only 52 are Roman citizens, either freedmen or citizens by grant or family. Of these, ten show some connection with the imperial household (although this does not necessarily mean that they had practised in Rome), and only one of the rest, C. Iulius Epianactis f. Mnesicleides from Paros, (IG XII, 5, 199Google Scholar), offers a really convincing possibility of service in Rome. If those with origo at Rome had to undertake liturgies if they were domiciled abroad (Dig. 50, 4, 1.), an incola returning to his home city can hardly have been more privileged.

100 Galen, XIV, 623 (Kühn); 648 (although a later version, XIX, 16, ascribes his departure to an outbreak of plague).

101 Galen, v, 751; cf. Lucian, Abdicates 180: πατρικῆς δὲ ἀνάγκης ἄμοιρος ἡ ἀτελὴς τέχνη, ὄπου γε τοῖς ἰατροῖς καὶ δημοσίᾳ αἱ πόλεις τιμὰς καὶ προεδρίας καὶ ἀτελείας καὶ προνομίας διδόασι.

102 On the wealth of Galen's father, Aelius Nicon, see Galen, V, 41; X, 561; XIV, 17 and the inscriptions IGRR IV, 502–506. Galen in his defence says that he has spent most of his inherited wealth and of his income, first upon cultural expenses, such as books, materials and scribes, and secondly on works of charity (V, 48), but the latter appear to be small, cf. Sudhoffs Archiv XXII (1929), 84Google Scholar. It is possible that he was a decurion at Pergamum (V, 44); certainly he can in no way be called poor, even if not as wealthy as some of his friends (V, 48 f.)

103 I should like to thank Professor P. G. Stein and Mr. J. A. Crook for their advice and encouragement in the preparation of this paper: the errors and inconcinnities that remain are my own.