Place of refuge in antiquity
In
ancient Greece
and
Rome
, an
asylum
referred to a place where
people facing persecution could seek refuge
. These locations were largely religious in nature, such as temples and other religious sites. A similar concept, the
Cities of Refuge
, existed in the
ancient Levant
.
Ancient Israel and Judah
[
edit
]
The Cities of Refuge were certain
Levitical towns
in the
Kingdom of Israel
and the
Kingdom of Judah
in which the perpetrators of accidental
manslaughter
could claim the
right of asylum
, though he would still have to stand trial. Outside of these cities,
blood vengeance
against such perpetrators was allowed by law. The Bible names six cities as being cities of refuge:
Golan
,
Ramoth
, and
Bosor
, on the
east
of the
Jordan River
,
[1]
and
Kedesh
,
Shechem
, and
Hebron
on the western side.
[2]
There is also an instance of Adonijah, after a failed coup, seeking refuge from the newly anointed Solomon by grasping the horns of a sacrificial altar.
[3]
Ancient Greece
[
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]
In ancient Greece the temples, altars,
sacred groves
, and statues of the gods generally possessed the privileges of protecting slaves, debtors, and criminals, who fled to them for refuge. The laws, however, do not appear to have recognised the right of all such sacred places to afford the protection which was claimed, but to have confined it to a certain number of temples, or altars, which were considered in a more especial manner to have the
asylia
(Servius ad Virg. Aen. ii. 761.).
There were several places in
Athens
which possessed this privilege, of which the best known was the
Theseum
, or temple of
Theseus
, in the city, which was chiefly intended for the protection of the ill-treated slaves, who could take refuge in this place, and compel their masters to sell them to some other person (
Plut
. Theseus, 36; Schol. ad Aristoph. Equit. 1309; Hesych. and Suidas, s.v.).
The other places in Athens which possessed the
jus asyli
("right of asylum") were: the
Altar of Pity
, in the
Agora
, the altar of
Zeus
Ayopcuos, the
Altar of the Twelve Gods
, the altar of the
Eumenides
on the
Areopagus
, the Theseum in the
Piraeus
, and the altar of
Artemis
, at
Munichia
(Meier, Alt. Proc. p. 404). Among the most celebrated places of asylum in other parts of Greece, there are the
temple of Poseidon in Laconia
, on
Mount Taenarus
(Time. i. 128, 133; Corn. Nep. Pans. c. 4); the temple of Poseidon in
Calauria
(Pint. Demosth. 29); and the temple of Athena Alea in
Tegea
(Paus. iii. 5. § 6).
It would appear, however, that all sacred places were supposed to protect an individual to a certain extent, even if their right to do so was not recognised by the laws of the state, in which they were situated. In such cases, however, as the law gave no protection, it seems to have been considered lawful to use any means in order to compel the individuals who had taken refuge to leave the
sanctuary
, except dragging them out by personal violence. Thus it was not uncommon to force a person from an altar or a statue of a god, by the application of fire. (Eurip. Androm. 256, with Schol.; Plant. Mostett. v. 1. 65.) Incidents of violation of asylum include the deaths of
Cylon of Athens
and
Pausanias of Sparta
. The
464 BC Sparta earthquake
has been viewed by the contemporaries as divine vengeance for the Spartan ephors' murder of helots in violation of the asylum in the Tainaron temple.
In ancient Greece the term
asylia
was also applied to the security from plunder and piracy (
asylia
on land and sea), which was sometimes granted by one state to another, or even to single individuals (See Bb'ckh, Corp. Inscrip. i. p. 725.).
Ancient Rome
[
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]
The asylum (temple of the god Asylaeus) that
Romulus
is said to have opened at Rome on the
Capitoline Hill
, between its two summits, in order to increase the population of the city
[5]
was, according to the legend, a place of refuge for the inhabitants of other states, rather than a sanctuary for those who had violated the laws of the city. In the republican and early imperial times, a right of asylum, such as existed in the Greek states, does not appear to have been recognised by
Roman law
. Livy seems to speak of the right of asylum as peculiar to the Greeks.
[6]
By a
constitutio
of
Antoninus Pius
, it was decreed that if a slave in a province fled to the temples of the gods or the statues of the emperors to avoid the ill-usage of his master, the
praeses
could compel the master to sell the slave,
[7]
and the slave was not regarded by the law as a runaway
(
fugitivus
)
. This
constitutio
of Antoninus is quoted in
Justinian
's
Institutes
(1. tit. 8. s. 2), with a slight alteration; the words
ad aedem sacram
are substituted for
ad fana deorum
, since the
jus asyli
was in his time extended to churches.
Those slaves who took refuge at the statue of an emperor were considered to inflict disgrace on their master, as it was reasonably supposed that no slave would take such a step, unless he had received very bad usage from his master. If it could be proved that any individual had instigated the slave of another to flee to the statue of an emperor, he was liable to an action
corrupti servi
.
[8]
The right of asylum seems to have been generally, but not entirely, confined to slaves.
[9]
In the time of
Tiberius
, the number of places possessing the
jus asyli
in the cities in Greece and Asia Minor became so numerous as to seriously impede the administration of justice. In consequence of this, the
Roman senate
, by the command of the emperor, limited the
jus asyli
to a few cities, but did not entirely abolish it, as
Suetonius
(
Tiberius
37) has erroneously stated.
[10]
Ancient Hawai'i
[
edit
]
In the culture of ancient
Hawai'i
, certain places were designated
pu'uhonua
, which has been translated "place of refuge". A
pu'uhonua
was a sanctuary; a criminal who had violated the strict
kapu
code, or a defeated warrior or a
non-combatant
in a war could take shelter in a
pu'uhonua
, free from reprisal. Anyone, no matter their social status or crime, was free to enter, if they could reach the site before being overtaken by their pursuers. The resident priests would put to death anyone who pursued someone into the sanctuary. After being purified by a priest, the person was then free to leave, absolved of any crime.
[11]
One of the best preserved
pu'uhonua
is
Pu'uhonua o Honaunau
on the island of
Hawai'i
. It was the largest walled
pu'uhonua
in Hawai'i and was used for the longest period of time. Here a
heiau
(temple) preserved
the bones of Keawe
, a great chief who died
c.
1725
and was later believed to be a god. His
mana
(spiritual power) was believed to protect the area. Each
pu'uhonua
was similarly protected by a deified ancestor.
[11]
After unifying the islands in 1810,
Kamehameha the Great
abolished most of the
pu'uhonua
and established new ones, although the one at Honaunau was untouched. The kapu system itself was officially abolished in a taboo-breaking ceremony by
King
Kamehameha II
and his court in 1819, after which the importance of
pu'uhonua
declined, since there was no longer a need for their powers of absolution.
[11]
See also
[
edit
]
Further reading
[
edit
]
- Kirchheimer, Otto (1959). "
Asylum
".
American Political Science Review
.
53
(4): 985?1016.
References
[
edit
]
- ^
Deuteronomy
4:43 and
Joshua
20:8
- ^
Joshua 20:7
- ^
"Bible Gateway passage: 1 Kings 1:50-53 - New American Standard Bible"
.
Bible Gateway
. Retrieved
2024-02-13
.
- ^
By
Agostino
,
Ludovico
, and
Annibale Carracci
.
- ^
Livy
. i. 8;
Velleius Paterculus
i. 8;
Dionysius of Halicarnassus
ii. 15.
- ^
Livy, xxxv. 51:
Temphim esi Apollinis Delium … eo jure sancto quo sunt templa quae asyla Graeci ap pellant
.
- ^
Gains, i. 53.
- ^
Dig. 4-7. tit. 11. s. 5.
- ^
Dig. 48. tit. 19. s. 28. § 7. Comp. Osiander, De Asylis Gentilium, in Gronov. Thesaur. vol. vi.; Simon, Sur les Asyles, in Mem. de PA cad. des Inscript. vol. iii.; Bringer, De Asylorum Origine, Uau9 et Abusu Lugd. Bat. 1828; C. Neu, De Asylis Gott. 1837; respecting the right of asylum in the churches under the Christian emperors, see Rein, Das Criminalrecht der Romer, p. 896.
- ^
See also
Tacitus
, Ann. iii. 60?63, iv. 14 and Ernesti's Ex cursus to Suet. Tib. 37.
- ^
a
b
c
"A Cultural History of Three Traditional Hawaiian Sites on the West Coast of Hawai'i Island"
.
National Park Service
.