Studi sul crimen ambitus in età imperiale

The exegetical investigation is devoted to the evolution of the crimen ambitus in the imperial age of ancient Rome (I-VI century AD), a period in which this political crime has largely lost its essential republican connotation, recognizable in the use, on the occasion of the popular votes of city magistrates, of electoral propaganda means against legem. The adaptation of this figure of crime to the new system of government has determined in particular its extension to the appointments of bureaucrats belonging to the imperial administration, with the aim of punishing those cases in which the settlement in an office was the result of corrupt practices (suffragia) aimed at circumventing the rules laid down for career advancement, which privileged merit, seniority and compliance with the time limits established for progression.