Definition
The Lex Cornelia de Sicariis et Veneficis was a Roman statute enacted during the dictatorship of Lucius Cornelius Sulla, approximately 81 BCE, establishing criminal penalties for assassination, armed violence, and poisoning. It is among the earliest known examples of codified criminal law in the Western legal tradition and served as a foundational instrument of Roman public criminal procedure.
The law operated through the quaestio perpetua — a standing court empowered to hear charges on a permanent basis — and addressed two primary categories of conduct: (1) the actions of sicarii, armed men who carried weapons for the purpose of killing or robbing, and (2) veneficium, the preparation or administration of poisons, including conduct associated with magic and sorcery. The statute made the killing of another person's slave a capital offense punishable by death or exile. By later imperial extension under the Emperor Antoninus Pius, its reach was expanded to cover a master who killed his own slave, reflecting a gradual Roman legal recognition of limits on the absolute dominion of ownership over persons.
Why It Matters in Research
Researchers encountering this term in historical legal sources must understand that the Lex Cornelia de Sicariis is not a freestanding curiosity of Roman antiquity — it is a doctrinal ancestor of criminal homicide law cited by early modern jurists to justify the structure of deliberate killing as a discrete legal category. Glossators, canon lawyers, and early common law writers invoked Roman criminal statutes to lend authority to emerging categories of murder and poisoning. A researcher tracing the conceptual lineage of premeditated murder, the distinction between homicide by violence and homicide by guile, or the early criminalization of sorcery and poisoning will find this statute cited across medieval and early modern jurisprudential literature.
The reference in Bouvier to Institutes 1.8 (Justinian's Institutes) signals that the Lex Cornelia de Sicariis survived into the Corpus Juris Civilis and was transmitted to medieval Europe through that channel, not through direct access to the original Sullan legislation. Researchers should treat references to this law in post-classical sources as references to its Justinianic reception, which may differ in scope and emphasis from the original statute.
The extension to masters killing their own slaves is particularly significant for researchers interested in the history of slavery and legal personhood. Under classical Roman law, a slave was property (res), and the killing of one's own property was generally not cognizable as homicide. The Antonine extension represents a jurisprudential inflection point that later natural law theorists and abolitionists occasionally cited as Roman precedent for limits on ownership over human beings.
Historical Dictionary Support
Bouvier's Law Dictionary treats the Lex Cornelia de Sicariis briefly but accurately, identifying its core subjects — assassins and poisoners — and noting both the original provision regarding third-party killing of slaves and the Antonine Pius extension to a master's killing of his own slave. Bouvier cites Justinian's Institutes 1.8, confirming that the entry is drawn from the Justinianic text rather than from independent access to the Sullan original.
The Bouvier entry omits the quaestio perpetua dimension entirely, which is a significant gap for any researcher interested in the procedural history of criminal adjudication. The standing court structure established under Sulla's program of legal reform was as historically consequential as the substantive provisions, because it institutionalized a model of permanent criminal tribunals that influenced later developments in both ecclesiastical and secular criminal procedure.
Bouvier also trails off on the poisoning provision — the entry as preserved is incomplete, cutting off mid-sentence after noting the condemnation of those who employed "hateful arts of poisons and magic." This truncation reflects either an editorial omission or a source-text defect and should prompt researchers to consult primary Justinianic sources (Digest 48.8; Institutes 4.18) for the full provisions.
No entry for this term appears in Black's Law Dictionary in its earlier editions, which reflects that dictionary's common-law orientation and relative indifference to Roman statutory particulars. Researchers relying solely on Black's for Roman law terms will find systematic gaps.
Jurisdictional Note
This statute has no operative force in any modern jurisdiction. Its relevance to legal research is doctrinal and historical: it appears in the Corpus Juris Civilis (Digest 48.8; Institutes 4.18.5) and was applied in civil law jurisdictions inheriting the Roman tradition. Researchers working in comparative criminal law or legal history should consult those Justinianic texts as the authoritative transmitted version.