Proscription

The term originated in Ancient Rome, where it included public identification and official condemnation of declared enemies of the state and it often involved confiscation of property.

In addition to its recurrences during the various phases of the Roman Republic, it has become a standard term to label: Proscriptions (Latin proscriptio, plural proscriptiones) initially meant public advertisements or notices signifying property or goods for sale.

In 82 or 81 BC, Sulla instituted the process of proscription in order to purge the state of those supporters of his populist rivals, Gaius Marius and his son.

He instituted a notice for the sale of confiscated property belonging to those declared public enemies of the state (some modern historians estimate about 520 people were proscribed as opposed to the ancient estimate of 4,700 people) and condemned to death those proscribed, called proscripti in Latin.

Emperor Augustus frequently utilized this method of exile, as he desired to keep banished men from banding together in large groups.

Sulla used proscription to restore the depleted Roman Treasury (Aerarium), which had been drained by costly civil and foreign wars in the preceding decade, and to eliminate enemies (both real and potential) of his reformed state and constitutions; the plutocratic knights of the Ordo Equester were particularly hard-hit.

Sulla's proscription was bureaucratically overseen, and the names of informers and those who profited from killing proscribed men were entered into the public record.

While those proscribed and their loved ones faced harsh consequences, the people who assisted the government by killing any person on the proscription list were actually rewarded.

The proscription was aimed at Julius Caesar’s conspirators, such as Brutus and Cassius, and other individuals who had taken part in the civil war, including wealthy people, senators, knights, and republicans such as Sextus Pompey and Cicero.

Some of the listed were stripped of their property but protected from death by their relatives in the Triumvirate (e.g., Lucius Julius Caesar and Lepidus' brother Paullus).

[9] Marcus Velleius Paterculus asserted that Octavian tried to avoid proscribing officials whereas Lepidus and Antony were to blame for initiating them.

Cassius Dio defended Octavian as trying to spare as many as possible, whereas Antony and Lepidus, being older and involved in politics longer, had many more enemies to deal with.

[10] This claim was rejected by Appian, who maintained that Octavian shared an equal interest with Lepidus and Antony in eradicating his enemies.

[9] Plutarch described the proscriptions as a ruthless and cutthroat swapping of friends and family among Antony, Lepidus, and Octavian.