Violence in Roman Egypt. Ari Z. Bryen

one hand there is the accountbalancing slave, Ision, charged by his master to collect a series of debts; on the other hand, the assailant, Onnophris, resists him. Behind Ision’s narrative there may lurk many potential stories about motives, both his own and Onnophris’, and there are some tempting details in Ision’s description. It is interesting, for example, that Ision loses his πίναξ—his account book—in the melee, and given that the argument itself is about the settling of accounts, it seems possible that Onnophris could have been venting his anger over a financial situation both upon Ision’s body and upon the documentation of the ins-and-outs of their previous interactions. The accusations of envy, though grammatically bungled, may also speak volumes about how Ision perceived the nature of their relationship. Envy proceeds from a perceived imbalance in the “right” power distribution in a relationship or set of relationships, and points to the suspicions that ensue when these feel out of order.⁵³ In this case, despite his formal status as a slave, Ision was hardly powerless: this is in part because of the large range of abilities that slaves in the Roman Empire were allotted on behalf of their masters, but also, significantly, because he was the agent not just of any master, but of a fairly important one: the exegetes was connected to the office of the strategos, and in charge of citizenship lists and the appointment of guardians.⁵⁴ Likewise, there are the details of the violent acts themselves: Onnophris’ “irrational violence” (ἄλογον ἀηδίαν), his abuse, and his threats are recorded in the typical, indignant language of complaint—a language that presumes that Ision had dignity capable of injury in the first place. Onnophris, it appears from the petition, did not agree.⁵⁵

      When Ision wrote this petition, he made a public claim about the ways in which he deserved to be treated, sought to get the upper hand in defining the terms of his relationship with another individual, and attempted to involve external authorities in the relationship between himself and another (free) man. As with all claims, his was subject to contest, not just subsequently by his opponent in the courtroom, but also by local authorities (the observers, in Frier’s formulation), who could use their power to decide whether such a claim could be convincing or not.⁵⁶ In this case it is fortunate that this petition comes from an archive, for here we can better understand the workings of this process: while most of the Euhemeria petitions were subscribed by the epistates phylakiton and sent on to the archephodos with instructions that the archephodos “arrest” the malefactors and thus begin legal proceedings, Ision’s petition has no subscription.⁵⁷ In other words, it appears that Ision’s claim of violence was rejected. One way to frame this would be to say that local authorities decided that what Onnophris had used was merely justifiable force, not unacceptable violence, and he used it against a slave who deserved it, not a man who had rights worth taking the state’s time in defending. Presumably Chairemon, Ision’s owner, could try again by suing Onnophris for damages, but in such a case Ision would be presumed to be a piece of property, not a man.

      The second example is not papyrological, but comes instead from the jurisprudential literature. (Here it bears adding that Roman jurisprudence was not a hermetically sealed and independent tradition of thought, but was instead forged in tandem with empire.) The passage in question comes from the Digest, and is woven together from excerpts of Ulpian’s and Paulus’ commentaries On the Edict (both from the third century, but here discussing the opinion of Salvius Julianus, who worked in the second century). In book 9 of the Digest the opinions of the jurists are set out on the question of Aquilian liability, namely, the relationship of obligation that results from unlawfully causing harm to slaves and chattels. But the text then turns to the case of teachers, and a teacher who kills or wounds a slave during a lesson. Here the jurists are certain that the teacher is liable under the Aquilian law if he kills or wounds the slave, but the jurists then turn to the question of how to deal with a teacher in the case where he uses violence against his free-born charges: sutor, inquit, puero discenti ingenuo filio familias, parum bene facienti quod demonstraverit, forma calcei cervicem percussit, ut oculus puero perfunderetur. Dicit igitur Iulianus iniuriarum quidem actionem non competere, quia non faciendae iniuriae causa percusserit, sed monendi et docendi causa: an ex locato, dubitat, quia levis dumtaxat castigatio concessa est docenti: sed lege Aquilia posse agi non dubito: (Paulus libro 22 ad edictum) praeceptoris enim nimia saevitia culpae adsignatur.

      The second example is not papyrological, but comes instead from the jurisprudential literature. (Here it bears adding that Roman jurisprudence was not a hermetically sealed and independent tradition of thought, but was instead forged in tandem with empire.) The passage in question comes from the Digest, and is woven together from excerpts of Ulpian’s and Paulus’ commentaries On the Edict (both from the third century, but here discussing the opinion of Salvius Julianus, who worked in the second century). In book 9 of the Digest the opinions of the jurists are set out on the question of Aquilian liability, namely, the relationship of obligation that results from unlawfully causing harm to slaves and chattels. But the text then turns to the case of teachers, and a teacher who kills or wounds a slave during a lesson. Here the jurists are certain that the teacher is liable under the Aquilian law if he kills or wounds the slave, but the jurists then turn to the question of how to deal with a teacher in the case where he uses violence against his free-born charges:

      sutor, inquit, puero discenti ingenuo filio familias, parum bene facienti quod demonstraverit, forma calcei cervicem percussit, ut oculus puero perfunderetur. Dicit igitur Iulianus iniuriarum quidem actionem non competere, quia non faciendae iniuriae causa percusserit, sed monendi et docendi causa: an ex locato, dubitat, quia levis dumtaxat castigatio concessa est docenti: sed lege Aquilia posse agi non dubito: (Paulus libro 22 ad edictum) praeceptoris enim nimia saevitia culpae adsignatur.

      He (Julianus) says: a shoemaker, in the course of teaching a freeborn boy who was a son-in-power, struck his (the boy’s) neck with a shoe last, since the boy did not sufficiently perform the task he was taught. But as a result, the boy’s eye was knocked out. Julianus said that the action for iniuria does not apply, since he did not hit the boy with the object of causing injury, but with the object of teaching and admonishing. He doubts whether the action on hire applies, since the right of lightly chastising is granted to teachers. But I do not doubt that the Lex Aquilia applies: (Paulus, On the Edict book 22) since an excess of brutality on the part of the teacher is a reason for assigning fault.⁵⁸

      The Digest passage is interesting, not least because it mirrors certain moves that were made in defining the relationship between Ision and Onnophris. In the case discussed by the jurists, the question is put as to the nature of the relationship that occurs when there is violence between two free men who have unequal degrees of power over one another. The question, put in one form, is whether the striking of the child should count as violence or as force; certainly teachers have the right to strike the children they teach: so long as this is done for the purpose of “teaching and admonishing,” this is justifiable force, and no further relationship results between the two parties. But Ulpian and Paul do think that a claim can be made for Aquilian damages, if only as an actio utilis,⁵⁹ if the instructor’s violence crosses from acceptable to brutal. But in this case a series of wires have to be crossed for the legal operation to proceed properly: the praetor would write up a formula for Aquilian damages, and the judge would have to decide whether such a line had been crossed. But this would presumably require treating the free pupil through a fiction as though he were a slave, and allowing the suit to his father in his capacity—again fictional—as the boy’s “owner.”⁶⁰ The jurists’ moves in this argument reflect the same kind of intellectual slippage—though this time in the opposite direction—as that which prevails in the quarrel between Ision and Onnophris, and raises, however obliquely, a set of questions as to what kinds of relationships (of personal status and of obligation) can or must be assumed when the term “violence” (here, iniuria, a term I will return to below) is applied to certain kinds of acts. Here the injury to the boy cannot be characterized as violence between free and independent men (iniuria), for they are incapable of having a relationship of equals, at least in the sense that violence is prohibited between equal men, for here the right to harm lightly and for the purpose of correction is granted to one of them; nor, for the same reasons, as a relationship of contract (since the teacher was allowed, under such a contract,