Editing Hadrian (section)

==Legal and social reforms==
[[File:Bust of Emperor Hadrian. Roman 117-138 CE. Probably From Rome, Italy. Formerly in the Townley Collection. Now housed in the British Museum, London.jpg|thumb|left|[[Bust of Hadrian|Bust of Emperor Hadrian]], Roman, 117–138 CE. Probably from Rome, Italy. Formerly in the [[Charles Townley|Townley Collection]], now housed in the [[British Museum]], London]]
Hadrian enacted, through the jurist [[Salvius Julianus]], the first attempt to codify Roman law. This was the [[Praetor's Edict|Perpetual Edict]], according to which the legal actions of [[praetor]]s became fixed statutes and, as such, could no longer be subjected to personal interpretation or change by any magistrate other than the Emperor.<ref>Laura Jansen, ''The Roman Paratext: Frame, Texts, Readers'', Cambridge University Press, 2014, {{ISBN|978-1-107-02436-6}} p. 66</ref><ref>Kathleen Kuiper (Editor), ''Ancient Rome: From Romulus and Remus to the Visigoth Invasion'', New York: Britannica Educational Publishing, 2010, {{ISBN|978-1-61530-207-9}} p. 133</ref> At the same time, following a procedure initiated by [[Domitian]], Hadrian made the Emperor's legal advisory board, the ''consilia principis'' ("council of the [[princeps]]") into a permanent body, staffed by salaried legal aides.<ref>A. Arthur Schiller, ''Roman Law: Mechanisms of Development'', Walter de Gruyter: 1978, {{ISBN|90-279-7744-5}} p. 471</ref> Its members were mostly drawn from the equestrian class, replacing the earlier freedmen of the imperial household.<ref name="Salmon, 812">Salmon, 812</ref><ref>R.V. Nind Hopkins, ''Life of Alexander Severus'', CUP Archive, p. 110</ref> This innovation marked the superseding of surviving Republican institutions by an openly autocratic political system.<ref>Adolf Berger, ''Encyclopedic Dictionary of Roman Law, Volume 43'', Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, 1968, {{ISBN|0-87169-435-2}} p. 650</ref> The reformed bureaucracy was supposed to exercise administrative functions independently of traditional magistracies; objectively it did not detract from the Senate's position. The new civil servants were free men and as such supposed to act on behalf of the interests of the "Crown", not of the Emperor as an individual.<ref name="Salmon, 812"/> However, the Senate never accepted the loss of its prestige caused by the emergence of a new aristocracy alongside it, placing more strain on the already troubled relationship between the Senate and the Emperor.<ref>Salmon, 813</ref>

Hadrian codified the customary legal privileges of the wealthiest, most influential, highest-status citizens (described as ''splendidiores personae'' or ''honestiores''), who held a traditional right to pay fines when found guilty of relatively minor, non-treasonous offences. Low-ranking persons – ''alii'' ("the others"), including low-ranking citizens – were ''humiliores'' who for the same offences could be subject to extreme physical punishments, including forced labour in the mines or in public works, as a form of fixed-term servitude. While Republican citizenship had carried at least notional equality under law, and the right to justice, offences in imperial courts were judged and punished according to the relative prestige, rank, reputation and moral worth of both parties; senatorial courts were apt to be lenient when trying one of their peers, and to deal very harshly with offences committed against one of their number by low-ranking citizens or non-citizens. For treason ([[Law of majestas|maiestas]]), beheading was the worst punishment that the law could inflict on ''honestiores''; the ''humiliores'' might suffer crucifixion, burning, or [[Damnatio ad bestias|condemnation to the beasts in the arena]].<ref>Garnsey, Peter, "Legal Privilege in the Roman Empire", Past & Present, No. 41 (Dec. 1968), pp. 9, 13 (note 35), 16, published by Oxford University Press on behalf of The Past and Present Society, {{JSTOR|650001}}</ref>

[[File:Portrait bust of the emperor Hadrian. 2nd cent. A.D.jpg|thumb|right|Bust of Hadrian from Athens, {{circa}} 130 AD, [[National Archaeological Museum, Athens|NAMA]].]]

A great number of Roman citizens maintained a precarious social and economic advantage at the lower end of the hierarchy. Hadrian found it necessary to clarify that [[decurion (administrative)|decurion]]s, the usually middle-class, elected local officials responsible for running the ordinary, everyday official business of the provinces, counted as ''honestiores''; so did soldiers, veterans and their families, as far as civil law was concerned; by implication, almost all citizens below those ranks – the vast majority of the Empire's population – counted as ''humiliores'', with low citizen status, high tax obligations and limited rights. Like most Romans, Hadrian seems to have accepted slavery as morally correct, an expression of the same natural order that rewarded "the best men" with wealth, power and respect. When confronted by a crowd demanding the freeing of a popular slave charioteer, Hadrian replied that he could not free a slave belonging to another person.<ref>Westermann, 109</ref> However, he limited the punishments that slaves could suffer; they could be lawfully tortured to provide evidence, but they could not be lawfully killed unless guilty of a capital offence.<ref>Marcel Morabito, ''Les Réalités de l'esclavage d'après Le Digeste''. Paris: Presses Univ. Franche-C omté, 1981, {{ISBN|978-2-251-60254-7}}, p. 230</ref> Masters were forbidden to sell slaves to a gladiator trainer ([[lanista]]) or to a [[Procuring (prostitution)|procurer]], except as legally justified punishment.<ref>Donald G. Kyle, ''Spectacles of Death in Ancient Rome''. London: Routledge, 2012, {{ISBN|0-415-09678-2}}; William Linn Westermann, ''The Slave Systems of Greek and Roman Antiquity''. Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, 1955, p. 115</ref> Hadrian also forbade torture of free defendants and witnesses.<ref>[[Digest (Roman law)|Digest]] 48.18.21; quoted by Q.F. Robinson, ''Penal Practice and Penal Policy in Ancient Rome''. Abingdon: Routledge, 2007{{ISBN|978-0-415-41651-1}}, p. 107</ref><ref>[[Judith Perkins]], ''Roman Imperial Identities in the Early Christian Era''. Abingdon: Routledge, 2009, {{ISBN|978-0-415-39744-5}}</ref> He abolished [[ergastula]], private prisons for slaves in which kidnapped free men had sometimes been illegally detained.<ref>Christopher J. Fuhrmann, ''Policing the Roman Empire: Soldiers, Administration, and Public Order''. Oxford University Press, 2012, {{ISBN|978-0-19-973784-0}}, p. 102</ref>

Hadrian issued a general [[rescript]], imposing a ban on castration, performed on freedman or slave, voluntarily or not, on pain of death for both the performer and the patient.<ref>''Digest'', 48.8.4.2, quoted by Paul Du Plessis, ''Borkowski's Textbook on Roman Law''. Oxford University Press, 2015, {{ISBN|978-0-19-957488-9}}, p. 95</ref> Under the ''[[Lex Cornelia de sicariis et veneficis]]'', castration was placed on a par with conspiracy to murder and punished accordingly.<ref>Peter Schäfer, ''Judeophobia'', 104.</ref> Notwithstanding his philhellenism, Hadrian was also a traditionalist. He enforced dress-standards among the ''honestiores''; senators and knights were expected to wear the [[toga]] when in public. He imposed strict separation between the sexes in theatres and public baths; to discourage idleness, the latter were not allowed to open until 2:00 in the afternoon, "except for medical reasons."<ref>Garzetti, p. 411</ref>