Des justices « populaires » dans l’Empire romain (IIe-IVe siècles)

• Main Author: Soazick Kerneis
• Format: Article
• Language: fra
• Published: L’Harmattan 2013-06-01
• Series: Droit et Cultures
• Subjects: Alternative Justice; Curse Tablets; Judicial Cauldron; Judicial Prayers
• Online Access: http://journals.openedition.org/droitcultures/3026

Which sources for what sort of history? The libri talk about the governor’s justice in the Roman Empire. But what was this justice for the inhabitants of the Empire? Was there any place for other forms of justice? Can the modern concept of alternative justice be convenient for the Roman times? Many judicial prayers have been found recently and this constitutes an exceptional corpus able to enlighten the praxis of Law in the Roman provinces. As we know, there is a unity among the judicial prayers: everywhere the same words, the same style. Would the judicial prayers be only simple replication of the Roman trial. The alternative would be quite reduced due to the strength of the res publica to control all forms of justice. However it seems that if we look at the feelings of the litigants, the judicial prayers can constitute a genuine alternative justice because they allow them to ask for divine judgment and to access to revenge. It is in this relation to the divinity that we can find differences between the judicial prayers, those from Asia Minor and those from Roman Britain.