Slapping Somebody in Rome: An Insult to Honour?
Badel, Christophe
Slapping Somebody in Rome: An Insult to Honour? - 2024.
50
The German philosopher A. Schopenhauer defended the idea that the slap had non-humiliating character in ancient societies, which would not have had the same conception of honour as their Western heiresses. Yet in Rome, the slap is associated with slaves and infamous professions, especially actors. Since the XII Tables, it is punishable by the courts as an iniuria and the legal texts affirm its dishonorable dimension, that constitutes an attack on dignitas, especially as it strikes the face. It is indeed “a wound of honour”. If he was slapped, an aristocrat could respond with the same gesture—the talion—but he also had the choice to ignore the slap under various pretexts: inferiority of the aggressor, immorality of revenge, lightness of the offense. This strategic flexibility shows that Roman honour functioned differently from the “Mediterranean” honour theorized by anthropologists.
Slapping Somebody in Rome: An Insult to Honour? - 2024.
50
The German philosopher A. Schopenhauer defended the idea that the slap had non-humiliating character in ancient societies, which would not have had the same conception of honour as their Western heiresses. Yet in Rome, the slap is associated with slaves and infamous professions, especially actors. Since the XII Tables, it is punishable by the courts as an iniuria and the legal texts affirm its dishonorable dimension, that constitutes an attack on dignitas, especially as it strikes the face. It is indeed “a wound of honour”. If he was slapped, an aristocrat could respond with the same gesture—the talion—but he also had the choice to ignore the slap under various pretexts: inferiority of the aggressor, immorality of revenge, lightness of the offense. This strategic flexibility shows that Roman honour functioned differently from the “Mediterranean” honour theorized by anthropologists.
Réseaux sociaux