'Hostis' e il primato del diritto

The study aims at reflecting on the juridical dimension of the relationships with foreigners in Roman society, from the origins of Rome to the beginning of the Italic expansion. Deepening into this sphere leads to a better comprehension of Romans’ behaviour towards what they conceive as ‘other’ with respect to their own community. This research takes as parameter the polysemy of the word ‘hostis’ that, between the end of the V century B.C. and the beginning of the IV century B.C., semantically shifted from ‘foreigner’ to ‘enemy’. The exegesis of the two fragments of the XII Tables (II,2; VI,4) reveals that in that time the foreigner (hostis) provided with the ius commercii was preserved by Roman law. Therefore, in the ancient Roman society, there was an opening towards the hostis regulated by law, without eliminating the distinction from the civis. Afterwards, the study focuses on the acceptation hostis-enemy, when the relation with the other is mediated by the war. The sources (Cic., off. 3, 108; Liv. 34, 13, 5-6; D. 50, 16, 118 e D. 49, 14, 24) show that hostis (in the sense of enemy) was significant on the social and political level and assumed a military meaning through the law: the enemy, as such, had to be ‘legal’. Finally, in the light of the linguistic connection between hostis and hospes, the research focuses on the juridical aspect of the ‘guest’ in Rome. The antiquity of the hospitium (Liv. 1, 45, 2) documents that, since the ancient times, also the position of the hospes had been regulated by law. The outcome of the study is that, in the process of making of the Roman civitas, the «ethic of the hospitality» – that is a conceptual category of J. Derrida meaning the aspiration to unreserved hospitality –, found its expression in law.