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School of Law

Mercy in Ancient Legal Culture

When: Wednesday, February 5, 2025, 3:00 PM - 5:00 PM
Where: Room 313, Third Floor, School of Law, Queen Mary University of London Mile End Road London E1 4NS

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The Department of Law is delighted to host Professor Ioannis Ziogas, Professor in the Department of Classics and Ancient History at Durham University. Professor Ziogas is a specialist in the politics and poetics of Latin poetry. He also has an interest in law and literature, authoring a book on Law and Love in Ovid (2021) and co-editing Roman Law and Latin Literature (2022).

Professor Ziogas will be presenting new research on 'Mercy':

Mercy occupies a simultaneously marginal and essential position in the juridical order. It is an exception that signals the suspension of legal procedures, but its exceptionality makes it the basis of sovereignty. Mercy is emblematic of a ‘state of exception’, a key concept which defines the purview of the law by standing outside it. The centrality of mercy in Christianity is the main reason why many still think of it in positive terms. By contrast, the Romans saw danger in mercy; they saw how powerful men like Julius Caesar spared their enemy’s lives, to establish the simultaneously juridical and extrajuridical nature of their rule. Drawing on Schmitt, Foucault, and Agamben, the book examines the fundamentally autocratic dimension of clemency. By focusing on three case studies (Cicero, Pro Ligario; Ovid’s Arachne; Seneca, De clementia), the book shows that mercy is both virtue and vice due to its juridically ambiguous status.

This seminar is chaired and organised by Professor Maks Del Mar.

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