Photography used to be an impartial mechanism — or at least, it was thought of as such — and now it has lost that sacrosanctity.
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In fact, there is a strong argument to be made that German insistence on the sacrosanctity of the European project has increased in the political mainstream as a reaction to other global trends.
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The Case Against Free Speech is a sometimes flawed but necessary book, one that I hope people will read and argue with, and one that I hope spawns both some more rigorous histories of political conceptions of speech as well as some more pointed polemics aiming at the sacrosanctity of the First Amendment, which could stand to be a site of contestation rather than blindly awed reverence.
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All of the powers of the tribune derived from their sacrosanctity. One obvious consequence of this sacrosanctity was the fact that it was considered a capital offense to harm a tribune, to disregard his veto, or to interfere with a tribune. The sacrosanctity of a tribune (and thus all of his legal powers) were only in effect so long as that tribune was within the city of Rome. If the tribune was abroad, the plebeians in Rome could not enforce their oath to kill any individual who harmed or interfered with the tribune.
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Since tribunes were technically not magistrates, they had no magisterial powers ("major powers" or maior potestas), and thus could not rely on such powers to veto. Instead, they relied on the sacrosanctity of their person to obstruct. If a magistrate, an assembly or the senate did not comply with the orders of a tribune, the tribune could 'interpose the sacrosanctity of his person' (intercessio) to physically stop that particular action. Any resistance against the tribune was tantamount to a violation of his sacrosanctity, and thus was considered a capital offense.
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Their lack of magisterial powers made them independent of all other magistrates, which also meant that no magistrate could veto a tribune. Tribunes could use their sacrosanctity to order the use of capital punishment against any person who interfered with their duties. Tribunes could also use their sacrosanctity as protection when physically manhandling an individual, such as when arresting someone.Lintott, p.
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This could be used as a protection when a tribune needed to arrest someone. This sacrosanctity also made the tribunes independent of all magistrates; no magistrate could veto the action of a tribune. If a magistrate, the senate, or any other assembly disregarded the orders of a tribune, he could "interpose the sacrosanctity of his person" to prevent such action. Only a dictator (or perhaps an interrex) was exempted from the veto power.
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Each magistrate could only veto an action that was taken by a magistrate with an equal or lower degree of power. Since plebeian tribunes (as well as plebeian aediles) were technically not magistrates,Abbott, 196 they relied on the sacrosanctity of their person to obstruct.Holland, 27 If one did not comply with the orders of a Plebeian Tribune, the Tribune could interpose the sacrosanctity of his personPolybius, 136 (intercessio) to physically stop that particular action. Any resistance against the tribune was considered to be a capital offense.
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Ius intercessionis, also called intercessio, the power of the tribunes to intercede on behalf of the plebeians and veto the actions of the magistrates, was unique in Roman history. Because they were not technically magistrates, and thus possessed no maior potestas, they relied on their sacrosanctity to obstruct actions unfavourable to the plebeians. Being sacrosanct, no person could harm the tribunes or interfere with their activities. To do so, or to disregard the veto of a tribune, was punishable by death, and the tribunes could order the death of persons who violated their sacrosanctity.
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Blake, p 851. Stanley was educated at Eton College and at Christ Church, Oxford. Inspired by his grandfather, Stanley was devoted to traditional institutions and the sacrosanctity of property rights. From his mother, Stanley adopted a deep evangelical streak that typically influenced his decisions.
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If the Senate proposed a bill that the plebeian tribune (the magistrate who was the chief representative of the people) did not agree with, he issued a veto, which was backed by the promise to literally "'interpose the sacrosanctity of his person'" (or intercessio) if the Senate did not comply. If the Senate did not comply, he could physically prevent the Senate from acting, and any resistance could be criminally prosecuted as constituting a violation of his sacrosanctity. If the vetoed motion was proposed the next day, and the plebeian tribune who had vetoed it the day before was not present to interpose himself, the motion could be passed. In general, the plebeian tribune had to physically be present at the Senate meeting, otherwise his physical threat of interposing his person had no meaning.
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It was considered to be a capital offense to harm a tribune, to attempt to harm a tribune, or to attempt to obstruct a tribune in any way. All other powers of the tribunate derived from this sacrosanctity, with two rights: intercession between magistrates and advocacy for the people. The tribunes were assisted by plebeian aediles. In an emergency, a dictator would be selected by the Senate.
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Abbott, 136 In 48 BC, Caesar was given permanent tribunician powers,Abbott, 135 which made his person sacrosanct and allowed him to veto the Senate, although on at least one occasion, tribunes did attempt to obstruct him. The offending tribunes in this case were brought before the Senate and divested of their office. This was not the first time Caesar had violated a tribune's sacrosanctity.
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Due to their unique power of sacrosanctity, the Tribune had no need for lictors for protection and owned no imperium, nor could they wear the toga praetexta. For a period after Sulla's reforms, a person who had held the office of Tribune of the Plebs could no longer qualify for any other office, and the powers of the tribunes were more limited, but these restrictions were subsequently lifted.
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The Augustus of Prima Porta, 1st century AD, depicting Augustus, the first Roman emperor Augustus gathered almost all the republican powers under his official title, princeps: he had powers of consul, princeps senatus, aedile, censor and tribune—including tribunician sacrosanctity. Suetonius, The Twelve Caesars, Augustus, XXVII, 3. This was the base of an emperor's power. Augustus also styled himself as Imperator Gaius Julius Caesar divi filius, "Commander Gaius Julius Caesar, son of the deified one".
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In time, however, the differences between the plebeian aediles and the curule aediles disappeared. Cornelia, mother of the future Gracchi tribunes, pointing to her children as her treasures Since the tribunes were considered to be the embodiment of the plebeians, they were sacrosanct.Byrd, p. 23 Their sacrosanctity was enforced by a pledge, taken by the plebeians, to kill any person who harmed or interfered with a tribune during his term of office.
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Since the tribunes were considered to be the embodiment of the plebeians, they were sacrosanct. Their sacrosanctity was enforced by a pledge, taken by the plebeians, to kill any person who harmed or interfered with a tribune during his term of office. It was a capital offense to harm a tribune, to disregard his veto, or to otherwise interfere with him.Byrd, 23 In times of military emergency, a dictator would be appointed for a term of six months.
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This meant that the offender became forfeit to the god(s) and on his death he was surrendered to the god(s) in question.Ogilvie, R.M. (1995) A Commentary on Livy, Clarendon Press, Oxford, pp. 500-2 The implication was that anyone who killed him was considered as performing a sacred duty and enjoyed impunity.Altheim, F. (1940) Lex Sacrata, Amsterdam In the literature by Roman historians, the term sacrosanctity is usually found in relation to the Tribune of the Plebs, or plebeian tribune.
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Octavian tapped into public sentiment in Rome against the empowerment of a foreign queen at the expense of their Republic. Octavian also fostered the narrative that Antony was neglecting his virtuous Roman wife Octavia. He granted her and his wife Livia the extraordinary privileges of sacrosanctity. Cornelia Africana, daughter of Scipio Africanus, mother of the reformists Tiberius and Gaius Gracchus, and love interest of Cleopatra's great-grandfather Ptolemy VIII, was the first living Roman woman to have a statue dedicated in her honor.
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Their actions could not be vetoed by any magistrate other than a plebeian tribune, or a fellow censor. No other ordinary magistrate could veto a censor because no ordinary magistrate technically outranked a censor. Tribunes, by virtue of their sacrosanctity as the representatives of the people, could veto anything or anyone. Censors usually did not have to act in unison, but if a censor wanted to reduce the status of a citizen in a census, he had to act in unison with his colleague.
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But on the morning of the trial he was found to have been murdered in his house, notwithstanding his sacrosanctity. Cowed by the murder of their colleague, the remaining tribunes failed to block a levy of soldiers. Tensions rose as the leaders of the patrician and plebeian factions each argued that the other side was depriving them of their liberty. Things came to a head when Volero Publilius, who had served as a centurion in the Roman army, was called to serve as a common soldier.
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The various titles bestowed on the younger Edward at the end of 1326—which acknowledged his unique position in government while avoiding calling him king—reflected an underlying constitutional crisis, of which contemporaries were keenly aware. The fundamental question was how the crown was transferred between two living kings, a situation which had never arisen before. Valente has described how this "upset the accepted order of things, threatened the sacrosanctity of kingship, and lacked clear legality or established process". Contemporaries were also uncertain as to whether Edward II had abdicated or was being deposed.
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Although a tribune could veto any action of the magistrates, senate, or other assemblies, he had to be physically present in order to do so. Because the sacrosanctity of the tribunes depended on the oath of the plebeians to defend them, their powers were limited to the boundaries of the city of Rome. A tribune traveling abroad could not rely on his authority to intervene on behalf of the plebeians. For this reason, the activities of the tribunes were normally confined to the city itself, and a one-mile radius beyond.
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Sacrosanctity was the declaration of physical inviolability of a temple, a sacred object, or a person through the lex sacrata (sacred law), which had religious connotations. Festus explained that: “Sacred laws are laws which have the sanction that anyone who broke them becomes accursed to one of the gods, together with his family and property”.Festus, de Verborum Significatione Quae Supersunt Cum Pauli Epitome In some cases the law may have been applied to protect temples from being defiled.Coarelli, F. (1983) Foro Romano I: Periodo archaico, Rome, p.
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Therefore, for the first time, the Plebeians seemed to have indirectly acquired authority over Patricians. During the 4th century BC,Abbott, 49 a series of reforms were passed (the leges Valeriae Horatiae), which ultimately required that any law passed by the Plebeian Council have the full force of law over both Plebeians and Patricians. This gave the Plebeian Tribunes, who presided over the Plebeian Council, a positive character for the first time. Before these laws were passed, Tribunes could only interpose the sacrosanctity of their person (intercessio) to veto acts of the senate, assemblies, or magistrates.
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Tiberius, consigning himself to the worst situation, had him forcibly removed from the meeting place of the Assembly and proceeded with the vote to depose him.The Great Books, p. 677 These actions violated Octavius' right of sacrosanctity and worried Tiberius' supporters, and so instead of moving to depose him, Tiberius commenced to use his veto on daily ceremonial rites in which Tribunes were asked if they would allow for key public buildings, for example the markets and the temples, to be opened. In this way he effectively shut down the entire city of Rome, including all businesses, trade and production, until the Senate and the Assembly passed the laws.
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Given that the plebeian tribunes were not part of the Roman state and had no secular legal status, the threat to kill those who harmed them by the plebeians formed the base from which the powers of the plebeian tribunes were derived. The invocation of a religious law provided the justification and sacrosanctity conferred impunity. These tribunes provided protection from arbitrary coercion by public officials though auxilium (assistance) by personal intervention to stop the action. They also could use coercitio, the enforcement of their will by coercion through which they could impose fines, imprisonment or the death penalty on anyone who challenged them or abused them verbally or assaulted them.
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However, they were sacrosanct, and the whole body of the plebeians were pledged to protect the tribunes against any assault or interference with their persons during their terms of office. Anyone who violated the sacrosanctity of the tribunes might be killed without penalty. This was also the source of the tribunes' power, known as ius intercessionis, or intercessio, by which any tribune could intercede on behalf of a Roman citizen to prohibit the act of a magistrate or other official. Citizens could appeal the decisions of the magistrates to the tribunes, who would then be obliged to determine the legality of the action before a magistrate could proceed.
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In 23 BC, Augustus gave the emperorship its legal power. The first was Tribunicia Potestas, or the powers of the tribune of the plebs without actually holding the office (which would have been impossible, since a tribune was by definition a plebeian, whereas Augustus, although born into a plebeian family, had become a patrician when he was adopted into the gens Julia). This endowed the emperor with inviolability (sacrosanctity) of his person, and the ability to pardon any civilian for any act, criminal or otherwise. By holding the powers of the tribune, the emperor could prosecute anyone who interfered with the performance of his duties.
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The first law established that the resolutions (plebiscites) of the Plebeian Council were binding on whole people, including the patricians. The second law restored the right of appeal to the people which had been suspended during the two decemvirates and added the provision that no official exempt from the right of appeal was to be appointed and in the case of such an appointment anyone could lawfully kill him. The third law put the principle of the inviolability (sacrosanctity) of the plebeian tribunes (the representatives of the plebeians) into the statutes.Livy, 3.55 Previously, this principle was only enshrined in the religious sanction of the lex sacrata.
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Those who held the office were granted sacrosanctity (the right to be legally protected from any physical harm), the power to rescue any plebeian from the hands of a patrician magistrate, and the right to veto any act or proposal of any magistrate, including another tribune of the people and the consuls. The tribune also had the power to exercise capital punishment against any person who interfered in the performance of his duties. The tribunes could even convene a Senate meeting and lay legislation before it and arrest magistrates. Their houses had to remain open for visitors even during the night, and they were not allowed to be more than a day's journey from Rome.
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However, Go- Shirakawa gained the support of the two most powerful warrior clans, the Taira and the Minamoto, through their leaders, Minamoto no Yoshitomo and Taira no Kiyomori. Together, they easily defeated the armies of Sutoku leaving Go- Shirakawa as the sole imperial ruler. Sansom argues that because the course of the insurrection was dictated by the military clans, this moment represents a turning point in the nature of Japanese politics; the imperial clan had lost all authority and the military clans now controlled the political landscape. Sansom develops this point to assert that an intrinsic part of the insei system was the security it granted the emperors, as they often entered religion; the sacrosanctity of monks and priests was an intrinsic part of Japanese culture.
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H. Metzger, "Fouilles du Létôon de Xanthe (1962-65)" Revue archéologique (1966). Archæologists have excavated much of the ruins; discoveries include the Letoon trilingual, bearing inscriptions in Greek, Lycian and Aramaic, which has provided crucial keys in the deciphering of the Lycian language; it is conserved in the Fethiye Museum. The sacrosanctity of the site is the purport of an anecdote related by Appian concerning Mithridates, who was planning to cut down the trees in the sacred grove for his own purposes in his siege of the Lycian coastal city of Patara, but was warned against the sacrilegious action in a nightmare.Appian, Mithridates, 27, noted by T. R. Bryce, "The Arrival of the Goddess Leto in Lycia", Historia: Zeitschrift für Alte Geschichte, 321 (1983:1-13). p.
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Part of this confusion was what academic Jonathan Cave had described as a "collision of systems" between the British's ideas of sovereignty and the concept of traditional Malay rule and governance which were based on Malay customs and adat. This was manifested in the different understanding by both sides regarding the exact nature of the land jurisdiction over Naning that Britain had inherited from the Dutch which was the cause of the conflict. To the British, Dol Said derived his authority and position from his appointment by first the Dutch and subsequently the British. However, in his exchanges with the British, Dol Said continuously referred to his jurisdiction over Naning as stemming from the adat or 'customs' of the Malays which vested in him the 'sacrosanctity' of Malay kingship.
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Abbott, 357 It became a capital offense to harm, to attempt to harm, or to obstruct the emperor, and in time, this power provided the basis for laws that made it a capital offense, publishable by death, to even speak ill of the emperor.Abbott, 357 His sacrosanctity also gave him the authority to order the use of capital punishment against any individual. Under the republic, Plebeian Tribunes held these same powers, but what made the emperor unique was that he possessed these powers for life, and thus he could never be held accountable for his actions, did not need to stand for reelection every year,Abbott, 357 and could not have his actions vetoed. The emperor also had the authority to carry out a range of duties that, under the republic, had been performed by the Roman Censors.
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At the expense of the Nabataean king Malichus I (a cousin of Herod), Cleopatra was also given a portion of the Nabataean Kingdom around the Gulf of Aqaba on the Red Sea, including Ailana (modern Aqaba, Jordan). To the west Cleopatra was handed Cyrene along the Libyan coast, as well as Itanos and Olous in Roman Crete. Although still administered by Roman officials, these territories nevertheless enriched her kingdom and led her to declare the inauguration of a new era by double-dating her coinage in 36 BC. Roman aureus bearing the portraits of Mark Antony (left) and Octavian (right), issued in 41 BC to celebrate the establishment of the Second Triumvirate by Octavian, Antony and Marcus Aemilius Lepidus in 43 BC Antony's enlargement of the Ptolemaic realm by relinquishing directly controlled Roman territory was exploited by his rival Octavian, who tapped into the public sentiment in Rome against the empowerment of a foreign queen at the expense of their Republic. Octavian, fostering the narrative that Antony was neglecting his virtuous Roman wife Octavia, granted both her and Livia, his own wife, extraordinary privileges of sacrosanctity.
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