Lex Cornelia de sicariis et veneficis

Definition and Historical Background

The Lex Cornelia de sicariis et veneficiswas a criminal statute enacted by the Roman dictator Lucius Cornelius Sulla in 81 BC to suppress murder by hired assassins (sicarii) and the use of deadly poisons (veneficia). It formed part of Sulla’s wider program of writing laws and reconstituting the state after the civil wars.

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Scope of the Law

• Contract killing and use of hired assassins
• Manufacture, supply, or administration of lethal poisons
• Provision of love potions or abortifacients
• Performance of human sacrifice or animal offerings made with human blood
• Magical practices deemed harmful, such as binding spells or bewitchments
• Possession of magical manuals (libri artis magicae)

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Punishments by Social Class

Sulla’s law distinguished penalties according to the convict’s social standing, reflecting the honestiores–humiliores divide:

• Suppliers of poisons or abortive potions
  • Lower class (humiliores): relegation to the mines or execution if death resulted
  • Upper class (honestiores): banishment to an island or execution in fatal cases
• Practitioners of binding or bewitching spells
  • Crucifixion or being thrown to wild beasts
• Human sacrificers
  • Wild‐beast execution for humiliores; beheading for honestiores
• Professional “magus” (full‐time sorcerer)
  • Burned alive
• Possessors of magical books
  • Confiscation and public burning of texts; exile for honestiores, execution for humiliores

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Later Application and Legacy

The Lex Corneliaremained in force into the 6th century AD under Justinian’s codification. Its provisions were extended by imperial edicts to punish castration (Hadrian) and male circumcision (Antoninus Pius), with an exemption carved out for Jews. Over time, it helped standardize Roman capital punishments, gradually replacing archaic penalties like the Poena cullei (sewing poisoners into a sack and drowning them).

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Broader Significance

Beyond its immediate penalties, the law reveals:

• Roman anxieties about secretive violence, occult practices, and social order
• How legal distinctions reinforced class hierarchies in punishments
• The blurred lines between medicine, magic, and criminality in antiquity