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Hello and welcome. My name is David Miano, and I’m answering voicemails. Let’s give one a listen.
“As, I’m sure you know, there is a prolonged conversation in much of the United States
regarding policing and the role police officers and law enforcement play in society.
My question for you is: Could you talk a little bit about what we know about how ancient
societies policed themselves and generally what their concept of law enforcement was?”
Sure, and thank you for your question.
Maybe I should start out by noting that the word “police” is derived from the Greek word polis,
which was the quintessential ancient Greek political unit, sometimes called a city-state.
inherently is connected to a state’s executive civil force, which is entrusted with the duty
of enforcing state regulations for prevention and detention of crime and the maintenance of public
order. But we’ll get to the Greeks and Romans later. Let’s first go further back than that to
talk about early methods of law enforcement. The oldest known systems used what we call “kin
policing.” This was a system in which everyone was responsible for the behavior of their own
extended families. In other words, law enforcement was the responsibility of everybody. In many cases
there were not even written laws, just behavioral expectations according to the norms and traditions
of the group. Members of a clan or tribe simply banded together to enforce the rules of the
group on members who went rogue. Things changed when states formed,
though kin policing did still exist to some extent. During the Old Babylonian period in
ancient Mesopotamia (around 1800 BCE or so), civil law and justice were overseen generally
by the king and his administrators, but the enforcement was largely local.
No official police force existed at this time, but towns did have a civilian night watchman,
and there was someone called a redu, who was a semi-military official that maintained order.
By the middle of the 2nd millenium BCE, the redu has developed into a kind of police captain,
but he now carried an official staff instead of a weapon.
We can assume that he had men underneath him.
In the Assyrian state, the official who administered the law in cities
was called a rab ali, He had under him a militant tribe called the Itua,
who acted as policemen. They had a direct overseer called a shaknu. They were usually armed with bows
and had a reputation for cruelty and for harsh treatment of prisoners.
During the time of the Neo Babylonian empire (6th century BCE), a police official known as a
paqūdu emerged. Paqūdus seemed to have been in charge of on-site investigations of petty crimes.
He also performed arrests. Often judges and courts would
base their decisions on the discoveries of paqūdu. It was their groundwork on which
the judiciary, most frequently the temple courts, based their decisions. This is an
example of increased specialization in the bureaucratic apparatuses of empires.
Now what about Egypt? Well, in the early days, kings and nobles hired private guards,
but there was no official police force. When we get to the 5th dynasty in the Old Kingdom
(the late 3rd millennium BCE), we see evidence for fighting men being used as police, most notably
Nubian warriors known as Medjay. They were armed with wooden staffs and were tasked with
guarding public places. It appears they used dogs and monkeys to apprehend criminals.
In the time of the Middle Kingdom (early 2nd millennium), Egypt created its first
standing army and its first professional police force, focused on law enforcement.
The police force became more organized in the New Kingdom (late 2nd millennium)
and the judicial system also was reformed. The king’s vizier is the one who appointed
the chief of police, who was called Chief of the Medjay, the name being
a carry-over from the time when the police force was mainly comprised of Nubian warriors.
Interestingly, police officers not only enforced local and state laws, but they served as
prosecutors, interrogators, bailiffs, and administered punishments. There were even
special units, whose job was to enforce temple law and protocol, but they had to be trained
as priests first. Part of temple law enforcement included preventing blasphemy at festivals, which
basically means inappropriate behavior on such occasions. Other special units were assigned to
watching over the royal necropolises, safeguarding border crossings, guarding caravans, supervising
the transport of the daily labor of slaves, and protecting important administrative buildings.
Like most other places, Greece too started out with kin policing in early times. There were no
official laws or punishments until the 7th century BCE, which is when the Athenian Draco issued our
first set of laws known in ancient Greece. The law code of Solon of Athens came a short time later.
The Greek city-states did not really have official police forces. Cities often employed foreign
slaves to keep the peace. In Athens they had, for a time, Skythian archers employed with that
task. Sometimes you will hear it suggested that the Krypteia, an elite military unit in Sparta,
was used as a police force. While the Krypteia may have, from time to time, been used to enforce
order here and there, policing does not appear to have been one of its primary functions.
For the most part, when a crime was committed,
it was up to the injured party to bring the offender before the magistrates of the city.
If the injured party was incapable of arresting the criminal, he could summon the magistrate to
do so. But this would only be in cases of theft, murder, rape or adultery. For other crimes,
the magistrate would send the accused a written summons to appear before the magistrate.
We don’t know much about law enforcement in early India. One of the earliest texts on
proper conduct is the Apasthamba Dharmasatra, from the mid-1st millennium BCE. It prescribes
that a king should appoint uncorrupted officers and subordinates in towns and villages for the
protection of the subjects against thieves, who should be obliged to make good what is stolen.
It is not until we get to the time of the Maurya Empire (4th to 2nd century BCE) that we have
our first evidence for a state police force. The state was divided into districts. There was a head
of each district, called a Vishayapati, who was responsible for keeping the peace and detecting
crimes in the district. The district was divided into administrative units, which also had officers
in charge of maintaining law and order. On the village level, the village head, called
a Gramini was responsible for policing activity. He would discharge his duties with the help of
the village community. So at the grassroots level, in those days, a collective policing
was in operation. Each officer was accountable to his superior, and thus he would report problems
to his senior officers who were supposed to take proper action. The gramini was paid and
was assisted by an informal council of village elders. He is not mentioned as being generally
responsible for the police duties of the village but had the power to expel from the village.
Larger towns had a different police organization. There was a chief of police
called a Nagaradhyaksha or Nagarik. The Nagarikas were expected to maintain law and order,
look after the administration of jails, and check on the defenses of the town daily.
He also took custody of the lost property. Masters of houses were to report the arrival
or departure of strangers and travelers and to detain persons of doubtful character and
possessing weapons. Suspicious persons were to be arrested and punished. Even persons throwing dirt
on the street were to be punished. At that time, policemen were on duty for three hours at a time.
During the period of the Guptas empire (4th to 6th century CE),
the police existed as a separate organization.
Watchmen usually wandered around the town or on roads in search of thieves carrying staffs.
Rome originally had citizen-led militias to fight crime. But Augustus Caesar, Rome’s first emperor,
who ruled in the late 1st century BCE and early 1 st century CE created what we call the urban
cohorts. They were men from the Praetorian Guard (a special unit of the army charged with
guarding the city of Rome), who were assigned to ensure peace in the city. They patroled the city
day and night. But as crime increased, Augustus formed the vigiles, or watchmen of the city, who
were not affiliated with the Praetorian Guard, and they were charged with fighting crime and fires.
They were highly-organized, well-trained, and were given the power to protect and arrest.
But I should emphasize the fact that firefighting was their main job.
The police functions, including detective work, dealing with disturbances of the peace,
chasing down thieves, and guarding buildings, were secondary.
How about in China? Well, early on, as we have seen in other places,
a system was proposed to organize the people into family groups that would be mutually
responsible for each other's good behavior, and who would share each other's punishments.
In the Han dynasty, the capital city, Changan, grew to a huge size,
and crime became a concern. The city had numerous criminal gangs which engaged in
criminal activities including burglary and murders. To maintain order in the capital,
the Han emperors strengthened the law enforcement mechanisms by establishing security agencies,
first and foremost to protect the safety of emperors and the members of the royal family. The
chief administrative official of the capital was called the Changanling. Under him were officials
specifically responsible for law enforcement. An official called the Xianwei was was in charge
of maintaining order. He had a number of officers under him known as Xianyu, and they were basically
the police. They were responsible for patrolling the city streets and apprehending criminals.
Outside of the capital, at the local level, prefects, the chief administrative officers
of prefectures were given the responsibility for maintaining peace and order within their
jurisdictions. But most of it was handled by their deputy. Under him, various officers provided law
enforcement assistance. In each prefecture, there was a local security agency known as a Ting. A
ting was kind of similar to a police station. They were established in villages, towns, marketplaces,
ports, and along roads. The Ting was headed by a Ting chief called a Tingzhang. Ting chiefs
had to be literate, to have some military knowledge, and to know how to use weapons.
He had line officers under his command. The responsibilities of the Ting included
patrolling streets to prevent the breach of peace and apprehending criminals to be brought to court.
But kin policing did remain. Groups of five families were formed into a unit called a Wu.
Members of the Wu supervised each other and made sure that no members committed any crimes.
If a member committed a crime, it was the responsibility of the Wu
to have the person apprehended and produced before the court to be punished. And if your wu failed
to apprehend an offender, the other members of the Wu would receive the same punishment
as the offender would have received for the committed crime. As you might expect,
just to be on the safe side, it was common for wu members to tell on each other.
Anyway, that is a basic overview of ancient policing. I hope that answered your question.
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