Inside Rome’s Noisy Inheritance Court

Marcus Valerius

Step off the burning cobbles of the Forum with me for a moment and come into the shade. Ah, that is better. We are standing under the great arches of the Basilica Julia, where the sun cannot roast us alive, but do not expect any peace in here. Look down at your feet first. You see those circles and grids scratched straight into the white marble of the steps? Idle citizens did that with iron nails. They sit here all afternoon in the shadows, playing dice and moving little stones on those tabulae, dodging work while the whole empire burns around them.

Marcus Valerius

But listen to that noise! That is not a riot, my friend. That is Roman justice at work. Right now, under this single grand roof, four separate trials are happening all at once. Four tribunals of the Court of the Hundred, the Centumviri, trying inheritance cases side by side. And what separates them? Hanging linen curtains. That is it. Just thin cloth swinging in the breeze while four different lawyers scream at four different panels of judges, all trying to drown each other out. It is an absolute madhouse.

Marcus Valerius

Look over there near the tribunal. You see that bronze vessel on the pedestal with the tiny stream of water dripping from its spout? That is the clepsydra, the water clock. The law gives a speaker a set amount of water to make his speech. When the water stops dripping, his time is up, finished. So what does a slick advocate do? He, he, he builds up to a massive dramatic pause, drops his head, lets the silence stretch, and then turns to the presiding judge with tears in his eyes, begging him to add water, aquam dare, just to grant him a few more drops from the jar so he can yell for another five minutes!

Marcus Valerius

Come closer to the second curtain. This is the case everyone in Rome has been whispering about for a week. An eighty year old nobleman, rich as Croesus, dies and leaves his entire vast fortune to a teenage girl he married just ten days before he kicked the bucket. Disinherited his own rightful daughter completely! And look who is standing up for the daughter in his crisp white toga. That is the senator Pliny, Pliny the Younger, laying out the argument with that razor sharp mind of his.

Marcus Valerius

Listen to him go! He raises his hand, lands a brilliant point about family honor, and suddenly, BOOM! A thunderous roar erupts from the back benches! Stomping feet, shouting, wild applause that shakes the dust off the rafters! You would think the gods themselves had descended to praise his eloquence, right? Well, do not be fooled.

Marcus Valerius

Look closely at that young assistant standing near the front railing. Every time he wants that massive roar, he subtly flickers the hem of his tunic. That is the signal. Those men screaming in the back are not impassioned citizens hanging on every word. They are sophokleis, paid cheerleaders! We call them laudiceni, dinner clappers, because they sell their voices for three denarii a head and a free meal ticket.

Marcus Valerius

As Pliny himself loves to say about these paid mobs, at that price you can fill the benches, however many there are! It is complete theater. You pay three denarii, you get fifty men to stomp their sandals and yell that you are the greatest orator since Cicero, even if you are just rambling about a stolen olive tree.

Marcus Valerius

That is our court of law for you. Equal parts solemn Roman justice and paid street circus, all clattering together under one roof. Come on, let us step back out past the money changers and their ringing scales, back into the heat of the Forum. There is still half the city left to see today.