https://doi.org/10.21697/zp.2023.23.4.02
In the Roman Empire, banishment for forced labour in the mines (damnatio ad metalla) was one of the main penalties to which persons from the lower echelons of society and slaves could be sentenced for criminal offences. An analysis of the legal sources shows that it was administered for moderately serious offences on a par with banishment to the gladiatorial schools, with which it shared many common features, one of them being that the convicted person forfeited his freedom and became a slave. It was the second severest sentence after the death penalty because of the grim conditions in the mines, where inmates suffered a variety of deprivations and additional torture while they performed extremely hard labour. There were also milder degrees of this penalty which did not result in the convicted man losing his freedom, particularly if he was sentenced only to a fixed term in the mines. The widespread administration of damnatio ad metalla was determined not only by economic or social, but also ideological factors related to the principles of Roman penal policy and the way justice was understood at the time.
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