History of Toxicology and Environmental HealthToxicology in Antiquity II
2015, Pages 42–51
Chapter 4 – Poisoning in Ancient Rome: The Legal Framework, The Nature of Poisons, and Gender Stereotypes1
- Available online 25 September 2014
In the late Roman Republic, a law was enacted to deal with “poisoners” (venefici). The lex Cornelia de veneficis
established a permanent court that tried those who prepared, sold,
purchased, kept, or administered poisons for the purpose of killing a
person. But “poisoning” (veneficium) also encompassed practices
of magic able to alter someone’s body or mind. Jurists (i.e., legal
counselors), together with measures enacted by the Senate and the
Emperors, extended the application of the statute to include
pharmaceutical misuse. Sources frequently testify to lethal accidents
committed during the first century ce. Poisoning was considered a female crime. Narratives of rhetorical training for the courts depict mainly women as veneficae
because of their heinous character and weak nature. These techniques of
argumentation and stereotypes of the female sex were destined to
survive in social imagination as well as in forensic and medical
literature through the centuries.
Keywords
- Veneficium;
- venenum;
- lex Cornelia de veneficis;
- medical/toxic substances;
- pharmaceutical abuse/drug misuse;
- venefica;
- adultera;
- amatorium;
- abortion
- 1
- The ancient Greek and Latin sources have been translated into English by the authors of this article. For the translation of the text from Italian into English we are obliged to Sebastian Puchas and Marlene Peinhopf. We thank Aglaia McClintock for checking the abstract.
