In the Roman legal system, all private and public legal disputes were initi­ated by individuals against other individuals, all of whom became litigants once the matter was brought before the magistrate.

Hence, for this examina­tion of the Roman courtroom the litigant is of critical importance. Without him, there would be no case for the judge to consider, no arguments for the advocates to press, and no theatrics for the audience to enjoy.

It is also clear that extant evidence covers just a very small percentage of the total number of litigants active in Rome in the first two centuries AD. On one occasion Pliny remarks in a letter that cases in the centumviral court are occupying all his time and yet, from all his letters, we glean details of only four such cases.² Hopefully, the evidence we have provides a somewhat repre­sentative picture. The randomness with which any case is mentioned within a surviving source must be acknowledged, preventing any firm conclusions based on statistical analysis. The Digest, a sixth-century collection of earlier legal writings that includes petitions from individuals to the emperor, pro­vides a slightly better body of evidence for such analysis, and a statistical understanding of Roman litigation has been formulated from that material.³

To properly examine the Roman litigant, we want four pieces of informa­tion for any given dispute: 1) the identity of the litigant; 2) whether the litigant argued his own case or had an advocate; 3) the nature of the dispute; and 4) the court in which the case was heard.

While the identification of litigants within the courtroom at Rome is one goal of this chapter, no attempts are made to delve into the complete circum­stances of each case. Although it is possible, when two of the four elements mentioned above are provided, to speculate as to the missing elements, we would become hopelessly sidetracked if we attempted to completely recon­struct each of the many cases considered in this chapter. Rather, we are interested in discovering the sorts of people who took matters to court and the types of cases in which they were involved.

* * *

This chapter examines the litigant in two settings: outside and inside the courtroom. In the first section, I identify the litigant in terms of sex, age, and status, then examine the motivations that drove individuals to initiate private and public litigation and analyse the emotional impact upon the litigant of going to court, and close with the process of choosing an advocate. The sec­ond section considers the litigant within the courtroom itself. After a brief discussion of litigants representing themselves within the courts, I consider the emotions that litigants experienced during the hearing of their case. Next, I examine the physical presentation of the litigant, in terms of dress and hygiene. An exploration of the litigant’s verbal and physical interaction with the other courtroom participants — the judge, the audience, and the advocate — closes the chapter.