Published: 2022-08-20

A criminal offender’s modus operandi in Roman jurisprudence?

Krzysztof Amielańczyk
Zeszyty Prawnicze
Section: Artykuły
https://doi.org/10.21697/zp.2022.22.2.03

Abstract

At a time when European criminal law is undergoing a process of integration and development, the way the concept of an offence was perceived in Roman law may make a helpful contribution to the European concept of causation in criminal law, enhancing it from a perspective on historical experience. While the Roman jurists did not advance a highly sophisticated notion of the criminal offence in their theory, nonetheless they did make a few attempts to describe the nature of the crimen publicum. The style Claudius Saturninus and Paulus employed in their work may conjure up a remote association with the idea of a criminal offender’s modus operandi – a familiar concept in modern criminology. To create their models of the ways in which ancient offenders committed their crimes, Roman jurists relied on the accounts of crimes given in the leges iudiciorum publicorum, but they usually kept their remarks to the offence’s normative aspect. For a better insight into the question of modus operandi in Roman law, we shall have to embark on further research, taking a closer look at the specific features of the provisions of criminal law in ancient Rome, as expressed in the penalties prescribed in the relevant legal provisions depending on the different methods ancient offenders used to commit their crimes.

Keywords:

crimen publicum; Roman criminal law; jurisprudence; Claudius Saturninus.

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Citation rules

Amielańczyk, K. (2022). A criminal offender’s modus operandi in Roman jurisprudence?. Zeszyty Prawnicze, 22(2), 15–42. https://doi.org/10.21697/zp.2022.22.2.03

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