Judging Empire: Courts And Culture in Rome's Eastern Provinces

Abstract

In the middle of the second century CE, the satirist Lucian of Samosata (c. CE 125–180) composed a text known as theBis Accusatus(“Twice Accused”) in which he describes a day of judgment. It begins with Zeus complaining to Hermes about the onerous nature of running the universe:In the first place, I have to supervise the work of the other gods who have responsibilities under my regime, to make sure they don't slack in their duties. Then I have a million tasks to perform myself, scarcely manageable because of their complexity. It's not as though I simply have the major administrative tasks to perform, I mean managing and organizing the weather—rain, hail, wind, and lightning—before I can simply sit down and take a break from my assigned worries. I've got to do all this and keep a watch in all directions and supervise everything as though I were that herdsman at Nemea: people stealing, people perjuring themselves, people sacrificing. Has someone made a libation? Where's the sacrificial smell and smoke coming from? Who has called for me in sickness or at sea? But the most onerous task of all is being in so many places at the same time: Olympia for a hecatomb, Babylon for a battle, with the Getae to hail, with the Ethiopians to feast…Take an example. We're so damned busy, we've got an enormous backlog of old lawsuits not dealt with. They've been stacked there so long, they've fallen apart with mildew and they're covered in spider's webs. I'm thinking in particular about the ones taken out against certain individuals associated with the intellectual arts and crafts. Some of them are absolutely ancient. The litigants themselves are bawling on every side, grinding their teeth, calling for justice and accusing me of tardiness. What they don't realize is that it's not through contempt that these decisions have passed their sell by date. It's because of the state of bliss that they think we live in. That's the name they give to our complete lack of spare time.