Aplikácia Kornéliovho zákona o vrahoch a travičoch (lex Cornelia de sicariis et veneficis)

Abstract

The submitted contribution deals with application of the Cornelian Law on Assassins and Poisoners, which reacted on the sinister social phenomenon elicited by internal crisis of the republic in the form of a rapid increase of violent criminal activity. With a special consideration the article devotes to individual facts of the crimes which the act embedded. Besides the commission of a wilful murder, the article analyses also arming for the purpose of a wilful murder perpetration, reaching of unfair conviction of an innocent person to capital punishment due to corruption, machinations, or false testimony, or eventually setting the blaze with the intention to kill persons in a blazing building. At the same time, the article devotes also to recourse for poisoning which was considered as a special manner of commission of a wilful murder. Last, but not least, the article focuses on later extension of the force of this law to further criminal activity, e. g. castration, illegal circumcision, mixing of love-philtres, and administration of dangerous medicine.

Keywords

• lex cornelia de sicariis et veneficis
• wilful murder in the roman law
• roman criminal law