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Maiestas
DAVIDE SALVO
The Encyclopedia of Ancient History, First Edition. Edited by Roger S. Bagnall, Kai Brodersen, Craige B. Champion, Andrew Erskine,
and Sabine R. Huebner, print pages 42364238.
2013 Blackwell Publishing Ltd. Published 2013 by Blackwell Publishing Ltd.
DOI: 10.1002/9781444338386.wbeah19111
2
Significantly, the concept of maiestas populi
Romani was the subject of a specific crime,
called crimen minutae (or laesae) maiestatis,
consisting of the diminution of the reputation
and authority of the majesty of the supreme
status of Rome (ad Herennium 2.12.17; Ulpian
in Dig. 48.4.1); it was defined by a lex Appuleia
de maiestate (promulgated by the tribune
Lucius APPULEIUS SATURNINUS perhaps in
103 BCE), a lex Varia de maiestate (promulgated
by the tribune Varius Severus Hybrida in
90 BCE), and a lex Cornelia maiestatis (promulgated by Sulla in 81 BCE). Two further statutes
on the crime of maiestas were enacted by JULIUS
CAESAR (Cic. Phil. 1.23), at an uncertain date,
and by Augustus, who promulgated (in 27 or
8 BCE) a lex Iulia maiestatis redefining the crime.
Several kinds of wrongs were termed crimen
maiestatis: high treason, sedition, criminal
attack against a magistrate, contempt of the
various rites of the state, and disloyalty in
word or act, desertion and the like; in the early
stage of the republic these wrongdoings were
treated as perduellio (high treason), which was
defined by Tullus Hostilius (Livy 1.26.6).
During the empire, the crimen maiestatis
was extended to violation of the majesty of the
emperor, so including any offense where the
safety of the emperor or his family was involved.
The conception of the emperor as a divine being
made maiestas next to SACRILEGIUM (Ulpian in
Dig. 48.4.1). In the reign of Tiberius, charges of
maiestas were increasingly frequent through
the activity of informers, called delatores, and
SEJANUS used the crimen maiestatis for purging
his political opponents (such as AGRIPPINA THE
ELDER, her sons, and friends). Even a eulogy for
Brutus and Cassius, the murderers of Caesar,
was considered a crimen maiestatis as in the
case of the historian Cremutius Cordus
(Tac. Ann. 4.345; Cass. Dio 57.24.24; Suet.
Tib. 61.3; see CREMUTIUS CORDUS, AULUS). It is