The Sanction for Parricidium in the Light of Cassiodorus’ Variae – Comments on Cass., Variae 1, 18, 4 in the Light of Roman Criminal Law and Leges Romanae Barbarorum

Abstract

The traditional punishment for parricidium under Roman law was the poena cullei (“the penalty of the sack”). Its continued use in late antiquity is confirmed by the constitution of Emperor Constantine the Great later adopted in the Theodosian Code of 438 (C. Th. 9, 15, 1). It is not clear, however, whether this punishment was also applied in practice to pars Occidentis in the period after the abdication of Emperor Romulus Augustulus (476). The official royal correspondence preserved in Cassiodorus’ Variae mentions the penalty of exile imposed for fratricide (Cass., Variae 1, 18). The aim of the study is an attempt to interpret the indicated letter of Theodoric the Great, as well as a number of other sources (the provisions of Edictum Theoderici regis and Breviarium Alarici) to reconstruct the penal policy of this ruler towards the perpetrators of parricidium and homicidium.