The Romans had asked: who will supervise the supervisors?
Michael Falzon
The question "Who watches the watchmen?" does come from ancient Rome: the poet Juvenal wrote "quis custodiet ipsos custodes?" in his sixth Satire, in the late first or early second century AD. Juvenal was joking about a husband guarding an unfaithful wife, not about judges; the wider meaning came later. Rome did, separately, have laws against corrupt judges.How we reached this verdict ↓
Analysis and evaluation
The question is Roman. The poet Juvenal asked "quis custodiet ipsos custodes?", "who will guard the guards themselves?", in his sixth Satire, written around the late first or early second century AD. He was not, however, writing about judges or people in power.
The line is Roman, and the attribution holds
In the sixth Satire, Juvenal describes a husband being advised to lock up his wife and set guards on her to stop her being unfaithful. Juvenal replies: "Sed quis custodiet ipsos custodes?", "But who will guard the guards themselves?" His point is that the wife could simply win the guards over.
The original context is a household, not a courtroom
Juvenal was not discussing corruption in the justice system. He was mocking the idea that a husband could guarantee his wife's faithfulness by appointing guards who could themselves be bribed or persuaded. Today the phrase is used about judges, politicians, police officers and others in authority, to ask who holds accountable those who hold others to account. That wider reading developed long after Juvenal wrote it.
The problem is older than Rome, and the line is not a legal doctrine
The underlying question had already been explored by Plato in The Republic, written around 375 BC. Plato considered the risk that those appointed to protect society might abuse their power, and answered it by educating and training the guardians to act in the public interest. He never used Juvenal's phrase, though it is sometimes credited to him.
Juvenal was a satirist, not a legal theorist. His words were not a principle of Roman law or the basis of any Roman institution.
Rome did act against corrupt judges
The Romans recognised the danger of judicial corruption early. The Twelve Tables, one of Rome's first written law codes, from around 450 BC, set the death penalty for a judge found guilty of taking a bribe. Later laws added penalties for corrupt judicial decisions and let individuals seek compensation for certain misconduct by judges, and Rome set up standing courts to try provincial governors for extortion. Under Marcus Aurelius and Lucius Verus a special magistrate, the praetor tutelarius, was created to oversee legal guardians of children and others who could not manage their own affairs, though this did not concern judges.
These measures show that Rome saw the need to hold people in authority to account, even if its laws had no direct link to Juvenal's question.
Evaluation
What was said holds. A Roman writer did ask who would guard the guards, and the question has survived for almost 2,000 years.
Its original meaning was different from today's. Juvenal was joking about marital faithfulness, not questioning the accountability of the courts, and Greek philosophers had raised the underlying problem centuries earlier. Rome did, separately, recognise the problem of corrupt judges and legislate against it.
Editorial note
How we assessed this claim
We examined two parts of the claim: whether the question really came from ancient Rome, and whether it originally referred to the oversight of judges or other authorities. We also looked at what Roman law did about corrupt judges.
The first part is correct: Juvenal used the phrase in his sixth Satire, and its Roman origin is well established. That is what the speaker said, so the claim is rated True. The second part needs context rather than correction. Juvenal was writing about a husband trying to keep his wife faithful, and the phrase only later became tied to the accountability of people in power. The speaker did not claim otherwise, and the wider use of the question is a fair one in a debate about the courts, including family cases.
Limitations
- Some scholars have questioned whether the passage containing the phrase belongs to Juvenal's original poem. The additional manuscript evidence does not substantially change the context in which the words appear.
- The Twelve Tables have not survived in full. Their contents are known from quotations by later Roman writers, and editions number the provisions differently.
Sources
- Juvenal, Satires, Book VI, lines 346 to 348 (Latin text and English translation)
- Plato, The Republic (c. 375 BC), on the education of the guardians
- Aulus Gellius, Attic Nights 20.1.7, quoting the Twelve Tables on the death penalty for a judge who took a bribe
- Historia Augusta, Life of Marcus Aurelius 10.11, on the creation of the praetor tutelarius
- Roman statutes on judicial misconduct and extortion, including the lex Sempronia and the lex Iulia de repetundis, as discussed in modern studies of Roman judicial liability