Classica et Christiana, 16/2, 2021 /417
La violence politique pendant l’Antiquité tardive : remarques préliminaires [Political Violence in Late Antiquity: Preliminary Remarks]
Pierluigi Lanfranchi, Bruno Pottier, Christian Boudignon
ABSTRACT
Political Violence in Late Antiquity: Preliminary Remarks. Nowadays, the excessive use of violence by police in some famous cases makes more vivid Max Weber’s definition of the state as “a monopoly of violence”. But this definition seems not to be valid for Late Antiquity: in absence of police in Late Antiquity, the use of private violence is permitted by Roman law to prevent violence (vim vi repellere licet). Yet, even if the Roman state has no monopoly of violence, it is still based on violence and on a crude division of society between those who bear arms and those who are not allowed to.