ISSN 2367-7007 IUS ROMANUM 2/2017 http://iusromanum.eu Страница 1 от 9 SYSTEM OF PUNISHMENT IN ROMAN LAW Filip Mirić, Ph.D. Associate for Post Graduate Studies, University of Niš, Serbia INTRODUCTION The history of reaction to crime is, in fact, the history of punishment. As compared to the contemporary forms of punishment, classical forms of punish- ment have long been the primary criminal sanctions. This tendency did not cir- cumvent Roman law at different times of its application. The aim of the paper is to explore the concept of punishment in Roman law, which has not been fre- quently examined in domestic literature on Roman legal tradition. This may be supported by the fact that very few domestic authors studied Roman criminal law and criminal procedural law, as well as the methods of execution of penalties in Roman law 1 . One is the most important reasons certainly lies in the fact that the basic tenets of the Roman law tradition are most prominent in the field of civil law 2 . However, the Roman law heritage also encompases the Roman substan- tive and procedural criminal law. This segment of Roman law seems to have been unjustifiably neglected in scientific research. The subject of this paper is the system of punishment in Roman law, as part of Roman criminal law. The penal system changed in different historical periods of the Roman state. Moreo- ver, there are very few record on the use of corporal punishments (such as flog- ging, mutilation, stoning), which fully corresponds to the pragmatic spirit of the Romans. The paper aims to point out the significance of the penalty system in Roman law for the functioning of the Roman state, as well as the necessity of its further research. 1 In the Serbian Citation Index, there are no scientific papers about penalties in Roman law. Retrieved 23 July 2017 from http://scindeks.ceon.rs/. 2 About the influence of Roman law on contemporary civil law, see more IGNJATOVIĆ, 2012.