"For most of Republican history there was no formal law criminalising homicide: the Roman government was so deliberately decentralised that it did not see itself as a state which was harmed by private homicide. The murder of a private person did not affect the various magistrates’ power, and therefore the state need not interfere."
I like to consider myself a Roman History fan but this is a fact that shocked me. On a fundamental level I cannot conceive of a state that would take this attitude, regardless of time period. I tend to think people across history are more or less the same; I cannot fathom how a society would work when the government has this sort of attitude. This is probably one of the few things I've read about Rome where my thought is "My God they were totally different than us" rather than "My God they were just like us".
I like to consider myself a Roman History fan but this is a fact that shocked me. On a fundamental level I cannot conceive of a state that would take this attitude, regardless of time period. I tend to think people across history are more or less the same; I cannot fathom how a society would work when the government has this sort of attitude. This is probably one of the few things I've read about Rome where my thought is "My God they were totally different than us" rather than "My God they were just like us".