Roman forces could investigate your idle curiosity

Valley 101

Clay Thompson Arizona Republic USA TODAY NETWORK

Today’s question:

How did the Romans deal with everyday crime? By that I mean, if a citizen discovered a burglar in their home, or was robbed on the street, or a rape occurred, who was contacted? Did they have a police department? Did they have crime investigators? How were charges adjudicated?

The real question here is why do you ask?

Is this something that has been bothering you or keeping you awake at night? Or is it just idle curiosity?

Not that it’s really any of my business. Myself, I’m all for idle curiosity. It’s how you learn neat stuff.

Did you know that in Leonardo da Vinci’s voluminous notebooks, seemingly out of the blue, there is a note to himself to find out the length of a woodpecker’s tongue? Isn’t that great?

Since you asked, there were various levels of public safety workers in ancient Rome.

At first, rich people kept their own private security forces to guard their homes and possessions.

When Augustus took over as emperor in 27 B.C. he created the Urban Cohorts. These were a sort of paramilitary group divided into seven units to cover the city. They acted as police officers, guarded property, patrolled the streets, investigated crime and put down riots.

Augustus also put together the Vigiles, who were the night watchmen and firefighters.

At first the Vigiles were a band of about 600 slaves, but later the force used free citizens paid with a 4 percent tax on the sale of slaves.

And there were the Aediles to cover civil matters. They monitored markets to check on the quality of stuff like bread and to make sure traders were working on the up and up.

And there were the Praetorian Guards, who were the emperors’ bodyguards and didn’t really do much dayto-day crime busting.