Quaestio perpetua

The phrase quaestiones perpetuae the comes from Cicero, specifically in his history of Roman oratory, titled Brutus.[3] The first permanent jury court in Rome was formed in 149 BC with the passage of the lex Calpurnia de repetundis by the plebeian tribune Lucius Calpurnius Piso Frugi. Some historians believe that the first permanent courts were established earlier (perhaps in 159 BC) or later (with Gaius Gracchus' laws) but this is not supported by Ciceronean evidence.[4] The main innovation of Piso's was to establish a specific type of action and to make it possible at any time to bring charges: unlike with the trials before popular assemblies, which could only be convoked by a sitting magistrate, any citizen in good standing could bring charges that fell within the court's remit at any time.[5]

Prior to this point, any actions had to be brought either before a popular assembly or before an ad hoc tribunal established by law for that purpose. This was cumbersome and the permanent court established by the lex Calpurnia eventually displaced these ad hoc inquests over large portions of the law.[6]

The purpose of this novel court was to allow provincials or Roman citizens resident to prosecute provincial governors who stole or otherwise unlawfully appropriated goods and money from them. One of the main issues in that year was outrage over the corrupt actions of Roman governors in the provinces: for example, there was unsuccessful legislation brought to establish a special tribunal to try Servius Sulpicius Galba, who was governor in Hispania Ulterior the previous year,[7] for treacherously inducing a number of Lusitanian tribes to surrender before massacring them and selling the survivors into slavery. The legislation served "as a warning to men like Galba that the Senate intended to keep a permanent watch on the conduct of governors".[8] However, the immediate impact of the lex Calpurnia was "feeble", as it proceeded to acquit four of five governors charged before it, triggering a series of scandals.[9] Moreover, the original penalty was merely restitution of the stolen goods, without any kind of punitive damages.[10]

Between 123 and 122 BC, Gaius Gracchus was plebeian tribune. Part of his legislative programme included reining in the corruption exactions of provincial governors. To that effect, he expanded the scope of the courts: the provincials were permitted to sue on their own behalf, restitution was raised to double damages to create a penal element, and for particularly heinous cases, the court could deliver a sentence of exile.[10] Moreover, the jury pool was transferred from senators to equestrians, which was probably an attempt both to insulate the court from the influence of the senators (who might not want to act against their peers) and to reduce the senate's standing by showing a lack of confidence in their good faith.[11]

During and after the 120s BC, further permanent courts were created: there was a court inter sicarios to prosecute professional killers, a court de veneficiis on poisonings, and a court de ambitus on electoral corruption. A further court was established during Sullan times to punish counterfeiting and forged wills with exile.[12] It is not entirely clear whether these courts were also affected by the Gracchan reforms to the jury pools, but by 81 BC it is clear that the quaestio de repetundis no longer stood alone.[13] However, the piecemeal proliferation of various different courts hearing different kinds of cases contributed to a sense of illogic: court jurisdictions were expanded by grouping vaguely similar charges so that a prosecutor would not have to bring cases in multiple courts simultaneously.[14]

During one of the tribunates of Lucius Appuleius Saturninus, in either 103 or 101–100 BC,[15] he passed legislation establishing a permanent court on maiestas cases. Maiestas was an abbreviation for the longer phrase maiestas populi Romani minuta (diminishing the majesty of the Roman people) and is normally translated as referring to treason.[16]

The permanent court on poisonings had been formed by 98 BC and likely is older, having emerged from a moral panic some time in the second century about wives disposing of their aristocratic husbands. It is likely that after a series of ad hoc tribunals, it was decided that it would be easier to have a permanent court to avoid such procedural nuisances.[17]

The court inter sicarios was not a murder court: Duncan Cloud, in the second edition of the Cambridge Ancient History writes, "it is important not to translate quaestio de sicariis as 'murder-court'... sicarius does not mean murder but a professional killer". [18] Under Sulla's laws, it amalgamated with the court on poisonings, and in general dealt with citizens who were armed with the intention of committing crimes such a murder, theft, or arson. Metaphorically, as false convictions resulted in a citizen's judicial or political (though not actual) death by exile, these also came into the court inter sicarios's jurisdiction. Because this also included crimes that non-senators could in fact commit – non-senators were definitionally not the kind of people who, as governor, could steal from provincial communities – this court's president was normally an ex-aedile rather than a praetor – an expedient taken when the number of courts exceeded the number of praetors elected that year – giving it lower status.[19]

Legislation in 78 BC, the lex Lutatia brought by Quintus Lutatius Catulus Capitolinus, established a court de vi (public violence) in 78 BC. This court was meant to prosecute a number of crimes relating to political violence. This included intimidating or breaking up meetings of the senate by force, attacking magistrates, or disrupting the courts; other violent offences also were included, such as carrying offensive weapons in public, retaining gladiators to commit arson or murder, and stockpiling weapons.[20] The purpose of the law was to tame the rise in political violence in the late republic; it was also clearly unsuccessful.[21]

There were three later courts established: one to handle disputes over citizenship created by the lex Papia in 65 BC, one to handle kidnappings created by the lex Fabia de plagiariis some time before 63 BC, and one for kinslaying in consequence of a lex de parricidiis in 55 BC.[22] By the end of the republic and the early Principate, Tacitus reports some sixteen different quaestiones perpetuae operating in Rome.[23]

The quaestiones survived the fall of the republic into the early Principate. Through to the emperor Caligula, various changes were made to the jury pools (usually expanding them); Augustus introduced a new court for adultery and clearly intended for them to continue in operation. But by the third century AD, the quaestiones were entirely obsolete, with their jurisdiction being transferred in the city to the hands of the praefectus urbi and the praefectus praetorio.[1] Matters of state, such as treason, were likewise transferred to a compliant senate, which began in the imperial period to take on judicial responsibilities.[24] Through the imperial period, the system of jury trials gave way to inquisitorial investigation by a magistrate, known as a cognitio under various magistrates.[25]