Fairness falls victim to vengeance : the (Roman) Senate debates the death penalty

In this year of the fortieth anniversary of the abolition of the death penalty in France, while its application is slowly receding around the world, as shown by the support of States for the UN General Assembly resolution to establish a moratorium on the death penalty (December 16, 2020), what can we learn from reading Roman sources, particularly legal sources, about the relationship between equity, penal sanction and vengeance? How can we justify putting four hundred slaves to death, for the murder of the master by just one of them, as the norm (the Silanian senatus-consult) would have it? This is the question addressed by the jurist Cassius Longinus, as he discusses this frightening case in the Senate in 61 CE. This lecture invites us to analyze the rationale behind this implacable decision, which led to the execution, despite popular opposition, of the murdered senator's servile family: "All great punishments have something unfair about them, with regard to individuals, but are outweighed by the general utility", says Cassius. His reasoning brings us back to the debate on the death penalty. How are we to understand common utility? And can we accept that the desire for vengeance outweighs fairness?