Quale pena per le repetundae nel 59 a.C.? Spunti per la ricostruzione del trattamento sanzionatorio approntato dalla lex Iulia

It is well known that the last lex de repetundis was the Iulia one, passed during the first Caesar consulship in 59 BC, and its text has not reached us directly: scholars are, therefore, forced to reconstruct its content essentially based on the information obtainable from literary sources and from the jurisprudential commentary that can be read in D. 48.11, functional to the application of this legislation during the imperial age. A topic still debated nowadays is the sanctioning regime, which only some authors are inclined to extend up to the imposition of the poena capitalis for the punishment of the most serious charges of bribery (repetundae) aggravated by intolerable brutality (saevitia). A careful re-examination of the Plinian espistolary account of the senatorial trial celebrated against Marius Priscus between 98 and 100 A.D. (an episode at the time invoked by the Mommsen authority to deny the applicability of the more serious sanction) led us to believe that the Caesarian provision contemplated already some criminal hypoteses punishable by death penalty (according to the legal terminology of the last Republican age, “death penalty” was the condemnation to exile, resulting in aqua et igni interdictio).