medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
On Sat, 21 Dec 2002 11:50:56 -0500
John Mundy wrote:
>On the burning of Timothy the "north African", is not Africa merely the name of the Roman province that included most of Tunisia and some of Algeria?>
Not "the" name of the province of which you speak (officially, from Augustus onward, Africa proconsularis) but certainly a very common way of referring to it. But as the term "Africa" had other acceptations in antiquity and after and, indeed, has such today, to say that it is "merely" the name of this province is inaccurate.
>And, if so, would not the punishment be found somewhere in Roman Law or local practice?>
The punishment should be found in Roman Law regardless of the particular significance of "Africa", assuming that the execution in question occurred at a place within Roman imperial jurisdiction (as all of north Africa from Mauretania Tingitana to Egypt was at the time in question). So I'm not sure what the underlying logic of your "if so" is. And indeed it is: see Dig. 48. 19, esp. 8.2 (citation from Richard A. Bauman, _Crime and Punishment in Ancient Rome_ [Routledge, 1996], p. 150; I have not had time to verify it).
The excerpts from Ulpian's manual of proconsular administration and the other pertinent matter preserved in the _Digesta Iustiniani_ speak to the range of punishments available (vivicombustion being of course just one of many); they do not tell us whether one might have been more frequently applied in some part or parts of the empire than in others. So locating this punishment in Roman Law would not seem to offer much assistance in evaluating the original speculation, viz., that this particular punishment was in some way a north African specialty. Reasons for doubting whether that were so were given in my previous post.
Best,
John Dillon
**********************************************************************
To join the list, send the message: join medieval-religion YOUR NAME
to: [log in to unmask]
To send a message to the list, address it to:
[log in to unmask]
To leave the list, send the message: leave medieval-religion
to: [log in to unmask]
In order to report problems or to contact the list's owners, write to:
[log in to unmask]
For further information, visit our web site:
http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/medieval-religion.html
|