Trials with religious and political charges from the Principate to the Dominate

The aim of this paper is an analysis of different aspects of judicial trials in imperial Rome with a close relationship both to religion and to politics which include charges of fortune-telling and sorcery. All the aspects will be dealt considering supposed changes that occurred during the transition from the Principate to the Dominate. Magic and vaticination were often connected to politics and seen as a threat to the Emperor and the state. The selected sources prove that the Principate did not considerably differ from the Dominate as to the trials of this sort: Ammianus Marcellinus himself is the witness that honorati were tortured only in exceptional cases and, on the other hand, the use of judicial torture against highborn citizens is attested already for the Principate.