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Alternative Therapy. Business and Investment. Food and drinks. Mystery and Thriller. Self Improvement. Cornelius Sulla lex Cornelia. Three statutes in particular concerned gambling: the leges Cornelia, Titia, and Publicia, as well as a senatus consultum technically, not binding legislation, but equally authoritative in practice , were cited by the prominent imperial jurist Julius Paulus, and presumably from the early first-century BCE.

No ancient sources indicate any curtailment or punish- ment of betting of this type, even before the passage of the Sullan legislation. Rosivach, supra note 38, at Under this theory, betting by bystanders would encourage participants legionary soldiers or elite junior officers to raise their game and inspire the ranks at the same time. During the period in which he held supreme power in Rome BCE , Sulla sponsored many public spectacles, including elaborate games of various types, which he held to celebrate his victories in the East, as well as the supposed success of his efforts to restore order to the Roman state.

Ed, Routledge, For a detailed discussion of the civil law disincentives to gambling or operating gambling establishments see infra, Part IV.

Sulla was also known to have passed several enactments to check the extravagance of private persons. Rosivach, supra note 38, at 2. As previously noted, Lenticula, like Anthony himself, was apparently a habitual gambler whose continuing defiance of law and custom Cicero censured in no uncertain terms.

This would also diminish the risk of men of higher social station becoming indebted to those of considerably lower status. Shackleton Bailey trans. Another possible explanation for the inconsistency in state enforcement of the anti- gambling legislation over time may have been the varying interest of state officials, or later emperors, in suppressing gambling.

For example, Martial, writing during the reign of the unpopular imperial micro-manager Domitian who also made a practice of punishing rumored unchastity on the part of Vestal Virgins , may have witnessed a period in which such laws were more actively—if not necessarily effectively—enforced. Of course, those who employed force to compel another to gamble or continue gambling against his will were subject either to a fine, imprisonment or hard labor in the mines, according to the circumstances of the case.

Phil 2. By definition, such a penalty applied to one-time instances of dicing, not for a general pattern of conduct. Furthermore, it seems unlikely that the mere imposition of a fine would warrant an official pardon. By contrast, dice-playing was expressly for- bidden under the public law, even if the prohibition was not regularly enforced by the state.

In practice, it was Roman private law ius civile that really penal- ized illegal gambling by barring recovery for those individuals who had the greatest economic interest in it: namely, winners at dice and very likely the tavern owners and innkeepers who promoted dice games. Schoenhardt maintains that any public disgrace attached to Lenticula for dicing was purely extra-legal and unofficial infamia facti. Charles S.

For example, a law datable to the late second-century of the Common Era—the existence of which we can again attribute to the authority of the early third-century jurist Paulus—held that the father, or more precisely the paterfamilias, might recover money lost by a son under his power in potestate. Gambling debts might well be enforced in other, more violent ways, and it was highly unlikely that local or imperial officials regularly interfered in such matters.

As Barry Nicholas observed, a Roman paterfamilias traditionally had the power of life and death over his children including adult children and even grandchildren on the direct pater- nal line in potestate, analogous to the power of a master over a slave. Paulus, Ad Edictum Patria potestas, or the absolute legal power of a father or paternal grandfather over his children or grandchildren, technically included the power of life and death, and in many respects was analogous to the legal powers of masters over slaves.

Although the power of the pater familias to kill sons in potestate was rarely exercised in practice, numerous important legal consequences flowed from the institution of patria potestas: for example, a son in potestate legally owned no property in his own right, though his pater familias typically gave him a private fund peculium for his own use a similar arrangement could be made for trusted slaves.

In cases where a son in potestate breached a con- tract or committed a delict tort for which a monetary remedy was recognized, the pater familias could be held liable up to the full amount of the peculium. Conversely, in cases where a son or grandson in potestate had a private law claim arising out of a breach of contract, the pater familias, not the son, had the right and standing to sue for damages at for damages at law.

Paulus maintained that Roman law recognized a cause of action in favor of a slave owner or father paterfamilias whose slave or child in potestate was induced by a third party to gamble.

The action was grounded upon either a theory of iniuria in the case of a child, or the actio servi corrupti in the case of a slave. Among the crises facing the young and ambitious emperor was a profound economic and social crisis throughout the Empire that threatened the survival of both the small, independent, and tenant farmers whose labors fed the capital and its army, and the provincial town elites curiales who traditionally main- tained local infrastructures and acted as liaisons between local populations and the imperial government.

Conversely, in cases where a son or grandson in potestate had a private law claim arising out of a breach of contract, the pater familias, not the son, had the right and standing to sue for damages at law. Roberts, supra note 30, at The involvement of this quasi-criminal element in fleecing gamblers of good family no doubt also inspired a special provision for situations in which a loser at dice had been compelled by force to play or continue playing.

Specifically, the one who employed force was made subject to a fine and imprisonment at hard labor. Under Justinian, a remedy would ultimately be granted to allow losers under such circumstances to sue the winners at law to recover their losses, notwithstanding their own technical culpability under the criminal law prohibition of dicing still on the books.

In short, he wanted not only to marry the best of pagan Roman tradition and Christian virtue, but also wanted all his subjects paying their taxes in full and on time, and for all government officials responsible for collecting taxes and otherwise maintaining order to perform their duties efficiently, honestly, and with a fatherly regard for the welfare of the subjects—a tall order for his troubled times. In this light, even as it became increasingly obvious that rebuilding the imperial treasury and ending corruption in government were fundamentally incompatible goals in his war- ravaged empire, it is easy to see why Justinian would have looked upon gam- bling as something to be suppressed as both a moral matter and as an unneces- sary drain on the time, energy, and finances of all his subjects.

If this order is violated, no penalty shall follow, but lost money shall be repaid and recovered in a proper action brought by those who have lost, or by their heirs; and in case they fail to bring such actions, then in actions brought by the fathers or defenders of the cities, which shall not [prescribe] except in fifty years.

The bishops of the places shall inquire into these matters, using the help of the presidents. They shall further arrange for five games: leaping, pole-vaulting, throwing javelins or pikes, wrestling and show fighting.

But no one shall, even in these games, risk more than a gold piece, although he is very rich, so that when anyone happens to be best, the loss may not be great. The houses of those where these games are played shall be confiscated. The former concern is obvious, particularly with reference to propertied curiales—local elites who comprised an actual legal class or order and who by law bore the brunt of financial and logistical burdens of local administration in the Byzantine Empire, from tax collection to ensuring a ready supply of military manpower and corvee labor to maintenance of infrastructures at the local level.

Furthermore, Christianity was very slow to develop a specific anti-gambling dogma. The later Code of Chivalry, in its most developed phase, merely condemned excessive gambling by knights, especially where the object of the game in question was financial gain.

While it may appear to us to be merely a matter of public decency, or perhaps judicial control, it was a matter of utmost seriousness to Justinian. The emperor, whose reign both alone and jointly with his uncle Justin was marked by a number of natural and man-made disasters, from earthquakes and famine to war, was convinced that such catas- trophes were the result of divine wrath against mankind for blasphemy in all of its forms.

While the anonymous author of the sermon attributes the temptation to gamble to the devil, he nowhere cites Biblical authority for this assertion.

Rather, he views gambling as a gateway of sorts to more grievous sins such as lying, stealing, greed and sloth, hence the role of the devil as an instigator. While this may appear trivial today, blasphemy and false oath-swearing was deemed a grave sin capa- ble of bringing divine wrath against a community or an entire empire.

To start, correcting the perceived social evils associated with dicing, in addition to reiterating an existing if widely ignored criminal statute against it, involved creating both a broader right of action for the loser and attempting to negate the financial advantages of winning—in other words-to de-incentivize success at dicing.

First, this was because of the very limited circumstances under which such actions were allowed under pre- existing Roman law, which required either the winner or the loser to be a slave or son in potestate under the classical Roman law of Persons. Justinian would ultimately decree that a child in potestate although not that of a slave owned and controlled all property in his or her peculium except that which was directly given by the paterfamilias.

City prefects and prosecutors at the local level were likewise enjoined to undertake civil actions on behalf of losers in dice games when they or their heirs were unwilling or unable to take action to recoup money lost, or so it appears from a provision of Byzantine canonical law.

The law was different for clergy, however. Bishops and clergy who engaged in or even passively observed dice games were subject to additional penalties: namely, suspension of administrative and pastoral duties, temporary retirement to a monastery for first-time offenders, and de-frocking for repeat offenders. The latter, used by Mommsen and Krueger in their edition of the Codex Iustinianus to elucidate uncertain passages, however, stipulates a statute of limitations of only thirty years for such actions.

In summary, this edict marks a major leap forward from a mere statutory bar to recovery for injury, theft, or property damage for the House, to active state penalization of gambling operations through closure and confiscation of property where gambling occurred. The fundamental objection of elite Roman writers to gam- bling, from Cicero to Seneca to Ammianus Marcellinus, to playing at dice was not because it was immoral as we understand the term, but rather because it was a breach of decorum and derogation of duty, especially when aristocrats frittered away their time and fortunes in dice-playing.

Meanwhile dice-playing by non-elites was viewed by Roman writers-depending upon the circum- stances-as financially irresponsible, opportunistic, and in some cases even pred- atory. Justinian apparently eliminated the fines of four-times the stakes, which had been part of the Roman law perhaps as early as the Republic. Also permitted by private law were rights of action against masters or patres familias for sums won by their slaves or sons in dice games. On the other hand, rights of action under the civil law for theft, property damage, or even personal injury were specifically barred for the owners or operators of establishments, including private residences that allowed or facilitated illegal dice games.

It is clear that Justinian viewed gambling as a social evil—or more precisely, a syndrome of social evils from financial ruin to blasphemy—to be suppressed to the maximum extent pos- sible given the comparatively limited administrative resources of his domains.

In short, we have observed a profound shift in policy—if we may use this term with reference to Ancient Rome—from a narrow concern for protecting elites, and especially elite youths, from the dangers real or imagined of social disgrace, financial ruin, and corruption by their social inferiors, to a much broader concern for the safety of the empire as a whole.

If we consider Justin- ian as the last Roman emperor, as he himself certainly did, he saw the Empire threatened not only by gambling, but also by plagues, famines, and disasters. See Purcell, supra note 14, at Gaius institution By Takpil Kim.