Arve, and welcome to Emperors of Rome, a Roman history podcast from Latrobe University.

I'm your host Matt Smith, and with me today is Assistant Professor Zachary Hurs, legal

historian in the Department of Classics at the University of Colorado, Boulder.

This is episode C-L-X-X-V, the murder of Badania Secundis.

When Padania Secundis was murdered by his slave, the law was precise.

Every slave in the household, every man, woman and child, would be crucified as punishment.

The law that allowed this was called the Sinatus Consultum Selanianum.

It existed to ease the minds of the wealthy slave owners of Rome, so they could live in

power amongst the slaves who knew that their actions would mean that all were punished.

Here's Zachary Hurs.

So the bad law, the Sinatus Consultum Selanianum, is a sort of decree of the Senate, which

is one of many different ways that Romans pass laws.

It dates to Augustus, we believe, and what it's best known for is providing for the questioning,

which we should understand to mean torture.

The torture and execution of all slaves living under the roof of a murdered slave owner.

So if you have, say, a hundred slaves in your household, helping with household management

and other tasks, and you are killed, all of these slaves in your household will be killed.

There are some restrictions to this.

For example, I believe the slave owner has to be killed at home, it has to be tied to

some idea of the slaves being potentially implicated in their death.

It's a very, very broad, very punitive way of trying to get at the idea of a conspiracy

of being enslaved to kill a slave holder.

...