Mamertine Prison

[3] "Detention", however, includes debt bondage in the early Republic;[4] the wearing of chains (vincula publica), mainly for slaves; and during the Imperial era a sentence of hard labor at the mills, mines or quarries.

[6] Incarceration (publica custodia) in facilities such as the Tullianum was intended to be a temporary measure prior to trial or execution; abuses of this principle occurred but were officially censured.

In 63 BC, certain co-conspirators of Catiline, including Publius Cornelius Lentulus Sura, were held briefly in the Tullianum and executed there for their alleged plot to overthrow the government.

[9] Sejanus was held in the Tullianum before his baroque execution, which involved the Gemonian stairs, and the conflicting accounts of the end of Pleminius include a timely death in jail during trial.

[11] In general, long-term incarceration was more widely practiced in the later Empire, and from the 4th century, under Christian rule, Roman laws and occasional personal intervention on the part of an emperor indicate a growing need to crack down on abuses such as filthy conditions and torture.

As a prisoner of war, Perseus of Macedon was placed in a foul, overcrowded dungeon at Alba Fucens;[13] the son of Tigranes was kept at a praetor's house in Rome, where he could be trotted out as a dinner-party guest.

[18] Although Saint Paul is said to have been held in Mamertine Prison, he awaited trial in a house in the southern Campus Martius that became the church San Paolo alla Regola.