Oh, Romans.

[island_of_reil]

The Law of Slander and Libel, Founded Upon the Treatise of the Late Thomas Starkie, Esq., Q.C. by the late-19th-century barrister Henry Coleman Folkard, contains the following anecdote in re the fine levied by the Twelve Tables for slander:

The folly and absurdity of making either a fine or compensation fixed and arbitrary was well illustrated in the instance of Veratius, or Neratius, a rich Roman, who took great delight in walking through the streets of Rome, striking all those whom he met, according to his fancy and caprice: he was followed by a servant loaded with money, for the purpose of immediately paying the appointed fine to those whom he had thus insulted.

According to this blogpost, the anecdote originated with the Hadrian-era philosopher Favorinus and wound up in Aulus Gellius’s Attic Nights.
 

Comments

[quickbeam]

Oh wacky Romans! I think it's that description of "great delight" that did me in. Like he's aware of the wholesale ridiculousness of it all, but proceeds with it anyway.