A List of Names Was Posted in the Forum. Anybody Could Kill Them for Money
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Publishing a list of citizens who could be killed with impunity, and whose property went to the state and to their killers, was a Roman political device with an obvious flaw.
What the procedure was
A list of names was written up and displayed publicly. Anybody on it was outlawed, meaning they could be killed by anybody at all with no legal consequence, and a reward was paid for producing evidence of the killing. Their property was confiscated and sold at auction. Their sons and grandsons were barred from public office. Sheltering somebody on the list was itself a capital offence, which turned households, slaves and neighbours into informers and left the condemned with almost nowhere to go.
Why it was used
The device served several purposes simultaneously:
- •Eliminating political opponents without trials
- •Raising enormous sums from confiscated estates
- •Paying armies from those proceeds rather than from taxation
- •Rewarding supporters with cheap purchases at the auctions
- •Terrifying anybody considering opposition
- •Giving the whole thing a form that looked procedural
The two great episodes
Two occasions dominate the record and they differ instructively. Sulla, having won a civil war, posted lists in 82 before the common era that named hundreds of senators and thousands of the wealthier class, and his auctions created fortunes for his associates. The second occasion came in 43, when Antony, Octavian and Lepidus agreed lists between them as the price of their alliance, each surrendering allies to the others, which is how Cicero was killed. Contemporaries considered the second worse precisely because the names were traded rather than chosen.
What happened to the property
Following the estates explains much of the political consequence. Confiscated land was sold at auction, and because the sales were enormous and hurried, prices were low and the buyers were those with cash and access, meaning the associates of whoever posted the lists. Great estates were assembled this way in a few years. Freed slaves of the condemned sometimes bought their former masters' property. The resulting concentration of land in fewer hands was itself a political problem that contributed to the instability of the following decades, and attempts to reverse particular confiscations were still being litigated a generation later.
Why it undermined itself
The mechanism corrupted rapidly, which is the reason it is remembered as a byword rather than as a tool. Names were added for money, since a wealthy man with no political significance was worth more dead to whoever held the pen. Personal enemies and inconvenient creditors appeared on lists. Killers added names to justify killings already committed. The auctions enriched a narrow circle so visibly that it damaged the authority of those who ordered the lists. And because the sons of the condemned were excluded from office, the policy manufactured a generation of permanent enemies.
The takeaway
Posting a list made those named killable with impunity, confiscated their property, rewarded their killers and barred their descendants from office, which removed opponents, raised money and terrified everybody else. Sulla used it in 82 and the second triumvirate traded names against each other in 43. Names were added for money almost immediately, which is why it is remembered as a disgrace.