Tiberius, Imperial Detective
In ancient Rome, murder was a private business, unless the emperor took an interest in the case.
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Like all the best detective stories, the story opens with the body of a woman being found in Rome in the early hours of the morning, around A.D. 24. The sun was rising, the birds were singing, and a woman’s crumpled body was lying on the ground. The body was that of Apronia, the wife of the praetor Marcus Plautius Silvanus, and she had fallen, somehow, from a high bedroom window and not survived the fall. This was suspicious. Apronia was the daughter of Lucius Apronius, who was a very important man in Rome. He had enjoyed a very successful military career in Germany and Dalmatia, and had jointly put down a revolt in Illyricum. For this act, he had been granted the right to wear Triumphal Regalia, which was a really special outfit. Being the daughter of a man who was allowed to wear the special outfit was a bit like being the daughter of Brad Pitt; everyone wanted to marry Apronia so they could hang out with her dad. Her dad had chosen Silvanus, who was a man doing well for himself. He was a praetor, which is just below consul in terms of prestige, and the fact that he married the daughter of Apronius suggested that he was a man on the up.
Now, you’ll note that we have already diverged from what we may expect the narrative to be. In our murder mystery stories, the dead woman is found in the prologue and chapter one opens with the grizzled alcoholic detective examining the crime scene; but no police will appear to investigate Apronia’s suspicious death. There was no representative of the state of Rome who would get involved in this case until Apronius took it to the emperor because, as far as the Romans were concerned, the murder of wives, children, husbands, or really anyone at all was absolutely none of their business.
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The justice system in Rome was one based purely on personal responsibility. The individual was responsible for identifying that a crime had taken place, identifying who had committed the crime, and finding a resolution.
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This is the story of one such crime...
https://www.atlasobscura.com/article...-investigation