Diritto imperiale e prassi provinciale. Il caso dello scopelismo

The paper analyses the case of scopelism, a crime attested in the Province of Arabia and repressed by provincial governors within the cognitio extra ordinem. Its description is preserved in the rubric de extraordinariis criminibus, of the forty-seventh book of Justinian’s Digests, in an excerpt from the ninth book of Ulpian’s de officio proconsulis. To this testimony we can also add the text preserved in PBerol. 11324. A crime particular in its configuration, if not already in its own name (this is the only known case of a crime that has only a Greek name), according to established practice, it was object of repression more provinciarum. The sanction provided for would have been particularly severe, being able to reach poena capitis