Offenses. Public law comprised both the bulk of Roman "criminal" law and the rules that structured the government. The criminal offenses were few in number and many of them were "political" insofar as they were connected to the operations of the government. Two different offenses (perduellio, maiestas) are conventionally translated as "treason." Neither, however, focuses on direct betrayal to a military enemy. They extend to usurpation of government authority, exceeding one's own authority in public office, and, in a few extreme cases, military incompetence. Bribing voters and other forms of electoral corruption were prosecuted as ambitus. Vis, literally "force," was prosecutable as a public offense under the Republic only when it involved seditious violence. Under the Empire, the definition of the crime was expanded to include purely private violence. Repetundae is generally described as "extortion" but was only a crime in...