Apparently in America the police are deserting their posts in droves. The public has turned against them, there’s no respect (or funding) for their positions, and the popular refrain is that the whole system, to its very core, is ‘rotten’. As reported in the Free Press:
Now, why exactly are we talking about American police in these humble pages, which are dedicated to a time period thousands of years ago? Well, one of the aims here at Classical Wisdom is to illustrate how ancient wisdom can be helpful in our modern era. Too often folks dismiss the Classics as a subject for dusty libraries and ivory tower classrooms, fit solely for nostalgic out of touch intellectuals... but we history lovers know that’s not the case. After all, the root causes of many of our contemporary issues have not changed in the millennia... corruption, violence, the abuse of power... plagued the ancients as they do us now. As such, it’s always worthwhile to take the debates of the day to the virtual floor to discuss, ponder and pontificate. Which brings us to the concept of police. It is, like most things, steeped in ancient history. Indeed, the name itself derives from the Latin politia, the romanization of the Ancient Greek πολιτεία (politeia) 'citizenship, administration, civil polity'... however, its original manifestations were very different from today. While in Babylonia, law enforcement tasks were entrusted to individuals with military background, known as paqūdus, who were responsible for investigating petty crimes and carrying out arrests, in ancient Greece, policing was a job taken on by publicly owned slaves. In Athens, for example, a group of 300 Scythian slaves (the ῥαβδοῦχοι, "rod-bearers") was used to guard public meetings to keep order and for crowd control. They dealt with criminals, handling prisoners, and making arrests. However, other aspects associated with modern policing, such as investigating crimes, were left to the citizens themselves. Meanwhile in Sparta, a secret police force called the krypteia existed to watch the large population of helots, or slaves.
The slave police arrangement did not continue into the Roman empire. Rather than a dedicated police organization to provide security, the Romans employed the army and other duties related to police work were shared out. For instance, cities hired local watchmen for extra vigilance and magistrates, such as procurators fiscal and quaestors, investigated crimes. Victims of crime or their families organized and managed prosecution, as there was no concept of public prosecution at the time. These informal systems evolved with the size of the city. Once Rome had grown to almost one million inhabitants under the reign of Augustus, 14 wards were created. Protected by seven squads of 1,000 men called "vigiles", they acted as firemen and night watchmen. The vigiles caught thieves and runaway slaves, guarded the baths at night, and more generally, stopped disturbances of the peace. While the vigiles mostly handled petty crime, violent crime, sedition, and rioting was handled by the Urban Cohorts or the Praetorian Guard. Augustus then went on to create the cohortes urbanae, who were commanded by the urban prefect and served as a proper police force, in order to counterbalance the enormous power of the Praetorian Guard. It is clear that there is always a demand for some sort of policing, but how it takes shape differs greatly, especially considering the size of the population, the technology and weapons at their disposal or the specific issues (such as slave revolts) that might take place. So considering the wide variety in duties, expectations, and formality that encompassed the job of ‘police’ found in the ancient world, we return to our modern question: Anya Leonard Founder and Director |
It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
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