Prisons in ancient Rome
Imprisonment in ancient Rome was not a sentence under Roman law. Incarceration in facilities such as the Tullianum was intended to be a temporary measure prior to trial or execution. More extended periods of incarceration occurred but were not official policy, as condemnation to hard labor was preferred.
Detention
Detention is mentioned in the Twelve Tables, Rome's earliest legal code, and throughout juristic texts. "Detention," however, includes debt bondage in the early Republic; and the wearing of chains , mainly for slaves and convict labor.Increasingly during the Imperial era, a long-term sentence, often for life, was hard labor at the mills, mines, or quarries, which might be privately or publicly owned. Slaves or lower-status citizens sentenced to hard labor were held in camps at these worksites, which employed a combination of free, enslaved, and convict labor. On large commercial agricultural estates , enslaved laborers who had offered resistance were kept chained in semi-underground places of imprisonment called ergastula''.
Prison facilities
The first Roman prison was said to have been built by Ancus Marcius and enlarged by Servius Tullius, during the semilegendary period of the Roman kings. The Porticus Argonautarum, built by Agrippa on the Campus Martius, is thought by some to have been used as a temporary prison. Among other structures used as prisons in Rome, only that built by Augustus and named after Octavia has left considerable ruins. The prison in Alba Fucens is described as dark, underground, and small. The most famous place of incarceration was the Mamertine Prison.The tresviri or triumviri capitales oversaw prisons and executions, along with other functions that, as Andrew Lintott notes, show them to have been "a mixture of police superintendents and justices of the peace," playing some role also in administering prison guards. The capitales were first established around 290–287 BC and were supervised by the urban praetor.