The Law 157
loans and business transactions in a bid to facilitate economic growth (ET 134,
139, 149). This was also a world where civic life, such as it was, was in sharp
decline. There is nothing in the Edictum Theoderici on the repair of aqueducts
or roads, public monuments and works of art, theatres or games—in short the
sorts of things that characterized the highly civilized urban culture of classi-
cal Rome. To be sure, civic life continued, but on a much smaller scale. Walls,
roads, and aqueducts continued to be maintained well into the early Middle
Ages, at least in Rome.31 But by the 6th century this had become a matter of
private initiative more so than public policy.32
Crime and the Law
While the compilers of the Edictum Theoderici devoted most of their attention
to matters of Roman private law, such as legal status and personality, property
(including slaves), contract and sale, ownership and possession, marriage and
divorce, and succession and inheritance, they also drew inspiration from the
vast compendium of Rome’s criminal law. Here, just as with private law, conti-
nuity was the rule. The laws of Theoderic’s kingdom attest to the lasting legacy
of Roman criminal law in late antiquity.
Roman law defined crime as any wrongful act that threatened social well-
being and stability, and whose punishment was pursued in the interests of the
community rather than the victim, who was generally expected to be respon-
sible for his or her own safety. The penalty itself could vary. It could be flogging,
exile, or death, which meant that it affected the status of the wrongdoer exclu-
sively; or it might be sub-capital, which usually involved a fine (multa) that
was paid not to the victim or his family but to the treasury. Acts that fell under
this category included both crimes against the state (e.g. treason and sedition)
and common law crimes that primarily affected only the injured party, such as
murder, kidnapping, and adultery. This category excludes a number of wrong-
ful acts that we might classify as criminal, such as theft, fraud, injurious behav-
iour, robbery, and some kinds of murder (e.g. of a slave), as well as actions that
we might define as ‘white-collar crime’, like embezzlement. In these instances,
it was the victim alone who benefited from the stipulated remedy. While
the state provided the judicial machinery for the settlement of these delicts
through the civil court, it had no vested interest in them.
31 Coates-Stephens, “Walls and Aqueducts”, pp. 167–78.
32 E.g. Cassiodorus, Variae 3.49.