United States or Bulgaria ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
In every case but one this decree had been passed against the popular party. The only legal sanction given to the exercise of the imperium sine provocatione was the acquittal of the consul Opimius in B.C. 120. But the jury which tried that case probably consisted entirely of senators, who would not stultify their own proceedings by condemning him.
Under severe penalties he prohibited apparently in his renewal of the law -de provocatione- the appointment of extraordinary commissions of high treason by decree of the senate, such as that which after his brother's murder had sat in judgment on his adherents.
From the very introduction of the republic the magistrate had lost the right of inflicting capital punishment on the burgess without consulting the community, except under martial law; if this right of appeal by the burgess appears soon after the period of the Gracchi available even in the camp, and the right of the general to inflict capital punishments appears restricted to allies and subjects, the source of the change is probably to be sought in the law of Gaius Gracchus -de provocatione- But the right of the community to inflict or rather to confirm sentence of death was indirectly yet essentially limited by the fact, that Gracchus withdrew the cognizance of those public crimes which most frequently gave occasion to capital sentences poisoning and murder generally from the burgesses, and entrusted it to permanent judicial commissions.
In the case of Gaius Gracchus, in B.C. 121, the senate had voted uti consul Opimius rempublicam defenderet, and in virtue of that the consul had authorized the killing of Gaius and his friends: thus for the first time exercising imperium sine provocatione.
From the very introduction of the republic the magistrate had lost the right of inflicting capital punishment on the burgess without consulting the community, except under martial law; if this right of appeal by the burgess appears soon after the period of the Gracchi available even in the camp, and the right of the general to inflict capital punishments appears restricted to allies and subjects, the source of the change is probably to be sought in the law of Gaius Gracchus -de provocatione- But the right of the community to inflict or rather to confirm sentence of death was indirectly yet essentially limited by the fact, that Gracchus withdrew the cognizance of those public crimes which most frequently gave occasion to capital sentences poisoning and murder generally from the burgesses, and entrusted it to permanent judicial commissions.
Under severe penalties he prohibited apparently in his renewal of the law -de provocatione- the appointment of extraordinary commissions of high treason by decree of the senate, such as that which after his brother's murder had sat in judgment on his adherents.
Word Of The Day