Features of ancient roman criminal law

The article deals with the questions about ancient Roman criminal law and its origins. As these questions are relevant to modern law studies there is lack of discussion in Lithuanian law. If much attention is paid to Roman civil law and the history of law, the questions of the genesis of criminal justice are seldom of interest. Thus in Lithuania the law of ancient Rome is almost exclusively regarded as a civil law. The knowledge of history allows to understand the origins and conditionality of legal norms and provides valuable insights, as well as reveals the layers of this intangible property. As it is described in the history of law, ancient Roman law is the most perfect legal system in the ancient world, unified and all-encompassing. The richest legal culture has developed on the basis of this law which has long become property of all mankind. The question of the criminal law of ancient Rome is interesting because the civil law of ancient Rome is studied extensively. The provisions of old Roman civil law have not lost their meaning even after several millennia. As research shows there was no such thing as Roman criminal law in a modern understanding. There was no separate branch of law, area of legal regulatory system or centralized system of criminalization or penalization. However, during the early Roman period, then republic of Rome the system of criminal justice as we understand it today as an independent mechanism began to take shape. The author presents the separation of the concepts of the crimina (crimes) and delicta (private torts), the dual concept of Roman criminal law. The author mentions one of the first fundamental legal acts that established the provisions of criminal liability, i.e. The Laws of Twelve Tables as well as features and peculiarities of criminal proceedings, the process of iudicia populi, permanent courts or questiones perpetuae and courts during the times of kingdom, cognitio extra ordinem. The author presents the provisions of the criminal law of ancient Rome from different periods, examples of individuals laws as well as different criminal acts such as furtum, iniuria, vis, maiestas, repentundarum, plagium, peculatus, homicidium (paricidium), stuprum, ambitus, annonae, stellionatus, calmuniae