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BANDITS IN THE ROMAN EMPIRE
have been barbarian raiders. 58 In the third century the network of such
police posts, collectively known as stationes, was extended so much that it
covered all the main junctions of the imperial highways in the provinces. 59
However, travel does not appear to have become much safer as a result.
According to Cyprian, the third-century ‘Crisis’ naturally led to a further
increase in crime to such a degree that the roads were blocked by latrones
and the seas infested with praedones, while all about the horrors of war
prevailed. 60
Among official countermeasures were, in the first place, the police. The
governor of each province had overall responsibility for the fight against
crime. 61 He delegated particular duties to different authorities, above all to
the municipal police. We know of security personnel from regions of the
Empire under various titles. The districts of Egypt appear to have had the
most highly developed provincial police service; this will be discussed further
below. In this respect, the towns and villages of the Roman West seem
to have been very backward. At any rate, we have the least evidence from
this region. A ‘superintendent of counter-banditry measures’ ( praefect[us] |
arcend(is) latroc[in(is)]) buried in Nyon, Switzerland, had one colleague with
the same title in Bingen and another in Normandy. 62 Since this job title
occurs in the same terms in three different places, it was probably the official
designation of municipal police officers in the Gallo-German provinces. In
Asia Minor the same function was served by eirenarchoi, diogmitai and various
watchmen such as, for example the orophylakes, stationed in mountainous
areas. 63 Latrunculatores are known of, but it is difficult to determine the parts
of the Empire in which they were active. 64 We even know the names of some
‘thief takers’ who were, apparently, highly regarded and much in demand as
experts in their field. 65 All named police personnel were employed by cities.
In the countryside there was practically no formal policing apart, perhaps,
from that which resulted from those serving in stationes and in military
garrisons giving some thought to the security of the surrounding areas.
Common deficiencies in the public security system are indirectly indicated
by the existence of privately maintained estate security forces, whose members
sometimes behaved as badly as the villains they were supposed to
be chasing. 66 On the whole, the attitude of the Roman state to widespread,
generally petty, crime may be characterised as one of helplessness. In those
rare cases where official bodies were not content with crude repressive measures,
but developed preventive measures for the limitation of crime, it is
very difficult to make out how successful such ideas (which anyway appeared
only now and then) might have been. Altogether, we know of four different
methods that were used at various times to prevent crime: the disarming of
civilians, 67 the building of roads to pacify unsettled regions, 68 the deliberate
introduction of new populations 69 and military recruitment. 70
Robbery on the high seas differs from highway robbery simply by means,
not by motive. As a result, in Greek it was only very late that banditry on
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