Roman Empire

====Unequal justice====
[[File:Tunisia-3363 - Amphitheatre Spectacle.jpg|thumb|Condemned man attacked by a leopard in the arena (3rd-century mosaic from Tunisia)]]
As the republican principle of citizens' equality under the law faded, the symbolic and social privileges of the upper classes led to an informal division of Roman society into those who had acquired greater honours (''honestiores'') and humbler folk (''humiliores''). In general, ''honestiores'' were the members of the three higher "orders", along with certain military officers.<ref name="verb">{{Cite journal |last=Verboven |first=Koenraad |date=2007 |title=The Associative Order: Status and Ethos among Roman Businessmen in Late Republic and Early Empire |url=https://biblio.ugent.be/publication/395187/file/6799583 |journal=Athenaeum |volume=95 |pages=870–872 |hdl=1854/LU-395187 |access-date=13 January 2017 |archive-date=3 November 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181103090625/https://biblio.ugent.be/publication/395187/file/6799583 |url-status=live }}; {{Harvp|Peachin|2011|pp=153–154}}</ref> The granting of universal citizenship in 212 seems to have increased the competitive urge among the upper classes to have their superiority affirmed, particularly within the justice system.<ref>{{Harvp|Peachin|2011|pp=153–154}}; {{Cite book |last=Perkins |first=Judith |title=Early Christian and Judicial Bodies |date=2009 |publisher=Walter de Gruyter |pages=245–246}}; {{Harvp|Peachin|2011|p=475}}</ref> Sentencing depended on the judgment of the presiding official as to the relative "worth" (''dignitas'') of the defendant: an ''honestior'' could pay a fine for a crime for which an ''humilior'' might receive a [[scourging]].{{Sfnp|Peachin|2011|pp=153–154}}

Execution, which was an infrequent legal penalty for free men under the Republic,<ref>{{Cite book |last=Gaughan |first=Judy E. |title=Murder Was Not a Crime: Homicide and Power in the Roman Republic |date=2010 |publisher=University of Texas Press |isbn=978-0-292-72567-6 |page=91}}; {{Cite book |last=Kelly |first=Gordon P. |title=A History of Exile in the Roman Republic |date=2006 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=0-521-84860-1 |page=8}}</ref> could be quick and relatively painless for ''honestiores'', while ''humiliores'' might suffer the kinds of torturous death previously reserved for slaves, such as [[crucifixion]] and [[damnatio ad bestias|condemnation to the beasts]].<ref name="fatal">{{Cite journal |last=Coleman |first=K. M. |date=2012 |title=Fatal Charades: Roman Executions Staged as Mythological Enactments |journal=Journal of Roman Studies |volume=80 |doi=10.2307/300280 |pages=44–73 |jstor=300280 |s2cid=163071557}}</ref> In the early Empire, those who converted to Christianity could lose their standing as ''honestiores'', especially if they declined to fulfil religious responsibilities, and thus became subject to punishments that created the conditions of [[Christian martyrs|martyrdom]].<ref>{{Harvp|Peachin|2011|pp=153–154}}; {{Cite book |last=Robinson |first=O.F. |title=Penal Practice and Penal Policy in Ancient Rome |date=2007 |publisher=Routledge |page=108}}</ref>