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Genocide and Human Rights
 The International Library of Essays on Rights
Series Editor: Tom Campbell

Titles in the Series:

D isability Rights G enocide and Hum an Rights

Peter Blanck Mark Lattimer

Indigenous Rights A nim al Rights

Anthony Connolly Clare Palmer

C ivil Rights and Security Social Rights

David Dyzenhaus Lord Raymond Plant and Selina Chen

C hildren’s R ights, Volumes I and II Gender and Rights

Michael D.A. Freeman Deborah L. Rhode and Carol Sanger

Language and Cultural Rights Rights o f Peoples

Leslie Green Gerry Simpson and Catriona Drew

C onsum er Rights Theories o f Rights

Geraint Howells and Iain Ramsay C.L. Ten

Group Rights Bills o f Rights

Peter Jones Mark Tushnet

Hum an Rights and Corporations

David Kinley
Genocide and Human Rights

Edited by

Mark Lattimer
Executive Director, Minority Rights Group International

Ö Routledge
Taylor & Francis Group

LO ND O N AN D NEW YORK
First published 2007 by Ashgate Publishing

Reissued 2018 by Routledge

2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017, USA

Routledge is an imprint o f the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business

© Mark Lattimer 2007. For copyright of individual articles please refer to the Acknowledgements.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by
any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying
and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the
publishers.

A Library of Congress record exists under LC control number: 2006048430

Notice:
Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for
identification and explanation without intent to infringe.

Publisher’s Note
The publisher has gone to great lengths to ensure the quality of this reprint but points out that
some imperfections in the original copies may be apparent.

Disclaimer
The publisher has made every effort to trace copyright holders and welcomes correspondence
from those they have been unable to contact.

ISBN 13: 978-0-815-38919-4 (hbk)

ISBN 13: 978-1-351-15756-8 (ebk)
Contents

Acknowledgements vii
Series Preface ix
Introduction xi

PART I DEFINITIONS AND LEGISLATION

1 Raphael Lemkin (1947), ‘Genocide as a Crime Under International Law’,

American Journal o f International Law, 41, pp. 145-51. 3
2 Matthew Lippman (1998), ‘The Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of
the Crime of Genocide: Fifty Years Later’, Arizona Journal o f International and
Comparative Law, 15, pp. 415-514. 11
3 Guglielmo Verdirame (2000), ‘The Genocide Definition in the Jurisprudence of
the A d Hoc Tribunals5, International and Comparative Law Quarterly, 49,
pp. 578-98. Ill
4 Catherine A. MacKinnon (1994), ‘Rape, Genocide, and Women’s Human
Rights’, Harvard Women ,s Law Journal, 17, pp. 5-16. 133
5 Beth Van Schaack (1997), ‘The Crime of Political Genocide: Repairing the
Genocide Convention’s Blind Spot’, Yale Law Journal,106, pp. 2259-91. 145

PART II UNDERSTANDING GENOCIDE AND MASS VIOLATIONS OF RIGHTS

6 Helen Fein (1978), ‘A Formula for Genocide: Comparison of the Turkish

Genocide (1915) and the German Holocaust (1939—45)’, Comparative Studies in
Sociology, 1, pp. 271-94. 181
7 Benjamin Madley (2004), ‘Patterns of Frontier Genocide 1803-1910: The
Aboriginal Tasmanians, the Yuki of California, and the Herero of Namibia’,
Journal o f Genocide Research, 6, pp. 167-92. 205
8 William A. Schabas (2000), ‘Hate Speech in Rwanda: The Road to Genocide’,
McGill Law Journal, 46, pp. 141-71. 231
9 Ervin Staub (1993), ‘The Psychology of Bystanders, Perpetrators, and Heroic
Helpers’, International Journal o f Inter cultural Relations, 17, pp. 315—41. 263
10 Michael Mann (2000), ‘Were the Perpetrators of Genocide “Ordinary Men”
or “Real Nazis”? Results from Fifteen Hundred Biographies’, Holocaust and
Genocide Studies, 14, pp. 331-66. 291
vi Genocide and Human Rights

PART III PREVENTING GENOCIDE

11 Barbara Harff (2003), ‘No Lessons Learned from the Holocaust? Assessing Risks
of Genocide and Political Mass Murder Since 1955’, American Political Science
Review, 97, pp. 57-73. 329
12 Louis René Beres (1988), ‘Justice and Realpolitik: International Law and the
Prevention of Genocide5, American Journal o f Jurisprudence, 33, pp. 123-59. 347
13 Jack Donnelly (2002), ‘Genocide and Humanitarian Intervention’, Journal o f
Human Rights, 1, pp. 93-109. 385
14 Jonathan I. Chamey (1999), ‘Anticipatory Humanitarian Intervention in Kosovo’,
Vanderbilt Journal o f Transnational Law, 32, pp. 1231—48. 403
15 W. Michael Reisman (1996), ‘Legal Responses to Genocide and Other Massive
Violations of Human Rights’, Law and Contemporary Problems, 59, pp. 75-80. 421

PART IV PUNISHMENT AND RECONCILIATION

16 Juan E. Méndez (1997), ‘Accountability for Past Abuses’, Human Rights

Quarterly, 19, pp. 255-82. 429
17 Stanley Cohen (1995), ‘State Crimes of Previous Regimes: Knowledge,
Accountability, and Policing of the Past’, Law and Social Inquiry, 20, pp. 7-50. 457
18 David Wippman (2000), ‘Atrocities, Deterrence, and the Limits of International
Justice’, Fordham International Law Journal, 23, pp. 473-88. 501
19 Israel W. Chamy (2003), ‘A Classification of Denials of the Holocaust and other
Genocides’, Journal o f Genocide Research, 5, pp. 11-34. 517
20 John Bomeman (2002), ‘Reconciliation after Ethnic Cleansing: Listening,
Retribution, Affiliation’, Public Culture, 14, pp. 281-304. 541

Name Index 565

Acknowledgements

The editor wishes to thank Hanna Nilsson Sahlin and Marusca Perazzi, who undertook much
of the primary research for this book.

The editor and publishers would also wish to thank the following for permission to use
copyright material.

Blackwell Publishing for the essay: Stanley Cohen (1995), ‘State Crimes of Previous Regimes:
Knowledge, Accountability, and Policing of the Past’, Law and Social Inquiry, 20, pp. 7-50.
Copyright © 1995 American Bar Foundation.

British Institute of International and Comparative Law for the essay: Guglielmo Verdirame
(2000), ‘The Genocide Definition in the Jurisprudence of the A d Hoc Tribunals’, International
and Comparative Law Quarterly, 49, pp. 578-98.

Copyright Clearance Center for the essays: Raphael Lemkin (1947), ‘Genocide as a Crime
Under International Law’, American Journal o f International Law, 41, pp. 145-51; W.
Michael Reisman (1996), ‘Legal Responses to Genocide and Other Massive Violations of
Human Rights’, Law and Contemporary Problems, 59, pp. 75-80. Copyright © 1997 Law
and Contemporary Problems.

Duke University Press for the essay: John Bomeman (2002), ‘Reconciliation after Ethnic
Cleansing: Listening, Retribution, Affiliation’, Public Culture, 14, pp. 281-304. Copyright ©
Duke University Press.

Elsevier for the essays: Helen Fein (1978), ‘A Formula for Genocide: Comparison of the
Turkish Genocide (1915) and the German Holocaust (1939-45)’, Comparative Studies in
Sociology, 1, pp. 271-94. Copyright© 1978 Helen Fein; Ervin Staub (1993), ‘The Psychology
of Bystanders, Perpetrators, and Heroic Helpers’, International Journal o f Inter cultural
Relations, 17, pp. 3 1 5 ^ 1 .

Fordham International Law Journal for the essay: David Wippman (2000), ‘Atrocities,
Deterrence, and the Limits of International Justice’, Fordham International Law Journal, 23,
pp. 473-88.

Harvard Journal of Law and Gender for the essay: Catherine A. MacKinnon (1994), ‘Rape,
Genocide, and Women’s Human Rights’, Harvard Women’s Law Journal, 17, pp. 5-16.
Copyright © 1994 Catherine A. MacKinnon.

Johns Hopkins University Press for the essay: Juan E. Méndez (1997), ‘Accountability for
Past Abuses’, Human Rights Quarterly, 19, pp. 255-82. Copyright © 1997 Johns Hopkins
University Press.
viii Genocide and Human Rights

McGill Law Journal for the essay: William A. Schabas (2000), ‘Hate Speech in Rwanda: The
Road to Genocide’, McGill Law Journal, 46, pp. 141-71. Copyright © 2000 McGill Law
Journal.

Notre Dame Law School for the essay: Louis René Beres (1988), ‘Justice and Realpolitik:
International Law and the Prevention of Genocide’, American Journal o f Jurisprudence, 33,
pp. 123-59.

Oxford University Press for the essay: Michael Mann (2000), ‘Were the Perpetrators of
Genocide “Ordinary Men” or “Real Nazis”? Results from Fifteen Hundred Biographies’,
Holocaust and Genocide Studies, 14, pp. 331-66.

Vanderbilt Law School for the essay: Jonathan I. Chamey (1999), ‘Anticipatory Humanitarian
Intervention in Kosovo’, Vanderbilt Journal o f Transnational Law, 32, pp. 1231—48.

Yale Law Journal and William S. Hein Company for the essay: Beth Van Schaack (1997),
‘The Crime of Political Genocide: Repairing the Genocide Convention’s Blind Spot’, Yale
Law Journal, 106, pp. 2259-91.

Every effort has been made to trace all the copyright holders, but if any have been inadvertently
overlooked the publishers will be pleased to make the necessary arrangement at the first
opportunity.
Series Preface

Much of contemporary moral, political and legal discourse is conducted in terms of rights and
increasingly in terms of human rights. Yet there is considerable disagreement about the nature
of rights, their foundations and their practical implications and more concrete controversies as
to the content, scope and force and particular rights. Consequently the discourse of rights calls
for extensive analysis in its general meaning and significance, particularly in relation to the
nature, location of content of the duties and responsibilities that correlate with rights. Equally
important is the determination of the forms of argument that are appropriate to establish
whether or not someone or some group has or has not a particular right, and what that might
entail in practice.
This series brings together essays that exhibit careful analysis of the concept of rights
and detailed knowledge of specific rights and the variety of systems of rights articulation,
interpretation, protection and enforcement. Volumes deal with general philosophical and
practical issues about different sorts of rights, taking account of international human rights,
regional rights conventions and regimes, and domestic bills of rights, as well as the moral and
political literature concerning the articulation and implementation of rights.
The volumes are intended to assist those engaged in scholarly research by making available
the most important and enduring essays on particular topics. Essays are reproduced in full
with the original pagination for ease of reference and citation.
The editors are selected for their eminence in the study of law, politics and philosophy.
Each volume represents the editor’s selection of the most seminal recent essays in English
on an aspect of rights or on rights in a particular field. An introduction presents an overview
of the issues in that particular area of rights together with comments on the background and
significance of the selected essays.

TOM CAMPBELL
Series Editor
Professorial Fellow, The Centre fo r Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics (CAPPE),
Charles Sturt University, Canberra
Introduction

Genocide is at once an ancient practice and a recent concept. Although rare, the attempted
extermination of entire peoples or human groups has persisted throughout history, culminating
in a last century that has retrospectively been dubbed ‘the age of genocide’. Yet the crime
of genocide was only recognized in international law after the Second World War, in the
same period of global restructuring and humanitarian idealism that produced the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights and the Geneva Conventions.
The neologism ‘genocide’ had been invented by Raphael Lemkin, a Polish lawyer, in 1944
in the course of his attempts to publicize the destruction of the Jews of Europe (Lemkin,
1944). Driven by the memory of his murdered family, at the end of the war Lemkin became
the leading campaigner for a multilateral treaty that would legislate for the suppression of
genocide. The 1948 Genocide Convention was one of the earliest achievements of the newly-
constituted United Nations. Under the Convention the states parties confirmed that genocide,
‘whether committed in time of peace or in time of war, is a crime under international law
which they undertake to prevent and to punish’.1 The crime was defined as any of a series
of acts, including killing, ‘committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national,
ethnical, racial or religious group, as such’.
Yet without any specific international enforcement mechanism to back up these weighty
obligations, the Convention remained virtually unused for nearly half a century. In seeking
to establish protection for whole groups, the Convention was unique among post-war human
rights instruments, which followed the lead of the Universal Declaration in focusing on the
rights of individuals. From this perspective, the Convention can be seen not just as a response
to the horrors of the Second World War, but also as the remnant of the international concern
for minority protection that characterized the League of Nations system in the inter-war
period. The idea underlying that system, which included specific minority treaties as well as
provisions in peace treaties between European states, was summed up by the Permanent Court
of International Justice as:

. . . to secure for certain elements incorporated in a State, the population of which differs from them
in race, language or religion, the possibility of living peaceably alongside that population and со-
operating amicably with it, while at the same time preserving the characteristics which distinguish
them from the majority, and satisfying the ensuing special needs.2

However, after the war the piecemeal minority protection system, tainted by association with
Hitler’s manipulation of the situation of German minorities abroad, was effectively abandoned
in favour of the establishment of a universal system of protection for human rights. In the
decades that followed, nearly all states came to accept that their human rights records were

1 Art 1, Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide 1948, 78 UNTS
277.
2 PCIJ, Minority Schools in Albania Case, Advisory Opinion, 6 April 1935.
xii Genocide and Human Rights

not exclusively a matter of internal concern, but at the same time they resisted international
oversight of the position of their minorities as an infringement of their sovereignty. Without
any ongoing international dialogue or monitoring mechanism covering groups at risk, there
was no established practice or expertise to start from, or fall back on, when confronted
with the egregious cases covered by the Convention. Even here, the need to safeguard their
sovereignty was cited by many states (most notably the United States, which did not ratify the
Convention until 1988 and then only with a package of reservations and understandings that
sought to limit possible interpretations of the definition of genocide and required the specific
consent of the US before any case could be brought against it before the International Court
of Justice).3
As a young man, Lemkin had argued: ‘Sovereignty implies conducting an independent
foreign and internal policy, building of schools, construction of roads . . . all types of activity
directed towards the welfare of people. Sovereignty cannot be conceived as the right to kill
millions of innocent people.’4 In effect, however, that was precisely the right that a number
of states continued to claim, as millions of civilians were killed in the Soviet Union, China,
Pakistan and Cambodia, and hundreds of thousands in massacres elsewhere around the
globe.
By the time of the 1994 Rwandan genocide, it seemed as if Lemkin’s rhetorical achievement
had outweighed or even pre-empted any practical effect the Convention might have. The
hyperbolic qualities of the term ‘genocide’ - its success as a new signifier for the worst case
- meant that, just as states avoided its use, it was regularly deployed by hundreds of aggrieved
groups around the world and by campaigners denouncing practices from domestic violence
to abortion. A disproportionate amount of the scholarly literature was consumed with debates
about which events qualified as genocide and which did not, and related definitional issues. Yet
even as incontrovertible evidence of the ongoing massacres in Rwanda reached the world’s
media, world leaders delayed in describing them as genocide, in some cases to avoid any
obligations they thought might then follow under the Convention.
Itis only in the last decade that real progress has been made. Atrocities in the former Yugoslavia
and then Rwanda finally prompted the UN Security Council to establish international criminal
tribunals to bring the perpetrators of those abuses to justice. The first convictions for genocide
were reached against the Rwandans Jean-Paul Akayesu and former prime minister Jean
Kambanda in 1998. In that same year 120 states agreed the statute of a permanent International
Criminal Court with jurisdiction over genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes, and
it came into force in 2002. In 1999, Slobodan Milosevic, President of the Federal Republic
of Yugoslavia, was indicted by the Yugoslavia Tribunal for crimes against humanity and war
crimes in Kosovo, and in 2001 he was arrested and transferred to the custody of the Tribunal
where he later faced further charges, including genocide in Bosnia. In the first litigation under
the Genocide Convention, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and later Croatia, brought cases before
the International Court of Justice against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (Serbia and
Montenegro), and FR Yugoslavia brought a case against the NATO countries. The failures

3 Under the international law doctrine of reciprocity, this also limited the ability of the US to bring
a case for genocide against another state at the ICJ. For an account of the ratification debates before the
US Senate, see Power, (2002, ch. 7).
4 From Lemkin’s unpublished autobiography, quoted in Power (2002, p. 19).
 Genocide and Human Rights xiii

by the international community to prevent or halt genocidal killing in Rwanda and Bosnia
also prompted a serious reappraisal of preventive mechanisms and international intervention.
At the UN world summit in September 2005, states agreed that the international community
had a ‘responsibility to protect’ populations from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and
crimes against humanity through appropriate diplomatic, humanitarian and other peaceful
means, but also through taking collective action through the UN Security Council, ‘in a timely
and decisive manner’, if peaceful means were inadequate. We are still a long way, however,
from what could be called an effective system of genocide prevention.
This collection of essays is therefore timely. The principal focus is on genocide, stricto
sensu, but the volume also covers other massive violations of human rights against groups
that do not fall within the Convention definition. The approach taken is broadly thematic,
although an attempt has been made to ensure some coverage of most of the major episodes of
genocidal killing over the last century. As perhaps befits a series on rights, the preponderance of
contributions are from the law, although a range of other disciplines are represented, including
political science, international relations, sociology, psychology and social anthropology.

Definitions and Legislation

Many of the issues debated in the volume are already announced in the essay included from
Lemkin himself (Chapter 1), written in 1947 when the push for a Convention entered its final
phase. The piece is of more than historical interest, however. The UN General Assembly
had already adopted a unanimous resolution in December 1946 affirming the criminality of
genocide and Lemkin stresses that the usefulness of a Convention would be to go further in
‘facilitating the prevention and punishment of the crime and apprehension of criminals’. The
aspect on which Lemkin here places greatest emphasis is the establishment of a universal
jurisdiction for the crime: ‘If the destruction of human groups is a problem of international
concern, then such acts should be treated as crimes under the law of nations, like piracy, and
every state should be able to take jurisdiction over such acts irrespective of the nationality of
the offender and of the place where the crime was committed.’
He was not to get what he wanted, as Matthew Lippman explains in Chapter 2. Article
VI of the Convention provided that persons charged with genocide ‘shall be tried by a
competent tribunal of the State in the territory of which the act was committed, or by such
international penal tribunal as may have jurisdiction with respect to those Contracting Parties
which shall have accepted its jurisdiction’. Although the text does not exclude other bases of
jurisdiction, it did not include the obligation aut dedere aut judicare (‘extradite or prosecute’)
which characterizes more recent international criminal law instruments, and a competent
international penal tribunal did not exist, as we have seen, for half a century. ‘There is a
contradiction between asserting that genocide is of international concern while relying on
a system of territorial jurisdiction,’ Lippman points out. ‘Consider whether Nazi Germany
would have voluntarily extradited or prosecuted those who had planned or implemented the
Holocaust.’ Lippman’s essay, the most comprehensive of a number he has written on the
history and law of the Convention, is particularly revealing on early jurisprudence involving
the crime of genocide and on the background and drafting history of the Convention.
The commencement of international prosecutions for genocide in the 1990s, as well as
interstate litigation, has brought a new focus to debates about the definition of the term. In
xiv Genocide and Human Rights

a thought-provoking essay (Chapter 3), Guglielmo Verdirame analyses the early case law
of the International Criminal Tribunals for Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia. The statutes
of the Tribunals (and that of the International Criminal Court) use the same definition of
genocide as the Convention and Verdirame looks at a number of contentious areas, including
the interpretation of the four types of protected group, and the specific intent requirement.
The Rwanda Tribunal discovered that the main group targeted for destruction, the Tutsis, did
not closely match any of the four types of protected group on objective criteria, as they were
not clearly differentiated from the majority population by national, racial or religious factors,
or by language or customary practices, held to be the main elements of ethnicity. The two
tribunals have in fact moved progressively towards evaluating membership of a group by
using subjective criteria, taking into account in particular the view of the perpetrators, with the
Yugoslavia Tribunal noting: ‘It is the stigmatisation of a group as a distinct national, ethnical
or racial unit by the community which allows it to be determined whether a targeted population
constitutes a national, ethnical or racial group in the eyes of the alleged perpetrators.’5
The tribunals have also progressed towards a clearer interpretation of the mental element of
the crime, in the face of numerous controversies. What sort of proof is required of the intent
to destroy, in whole or in part, a group as such? How large does the part have to be? Can a
conviction be made in the absence of a genocidal plan? In Akayesu, the trial chamber of the
Rwanda Tribunal had already noted that, absent a confession, intent can only be inferred
from a certain number of presumptions of fact, including the scale and general nature of the
atrocities, the deliberate or systematic targeting of one group while excluding members of
other groups, the general political doctrine of the perpetrators, the repetition of discriminatory
or destructive acts, and speeches or projects preparing the ground for massacres.6 From this
case and others, Verdirame concludes that the tribunals have crystallized ‘a method for the
judicial application of the dolus specialis’ or specific intent: ‘First, contextual elements are
assessed. In particular, the existence of a genocidal plan and the commission of a genocide in
a given situation are considered. Secondly, the Tribunals examine the genocidal intent of the
individual, which is distinct but yet connected to the “collective” genocidal intent underlying
the plan.’7 In its most important genocide judgment since Verdirame’s essay appeared, the
appeals chamber of the Yugoslavia Tribunal in Krstic found that the murder of seven to eight
thousand Bosnian Muslim men and boys at Srebrenica was genocide. It rejected the defence’s
arguments that the victims did not form a sufficiently substantial part of the Bosnian Muslim
group as a whole, and that the killing was motivated solely by the desire to eliminate the men
as a potential military threat.8 However, it set aside Krstic’s conviction as a participant in a
joint criminal enterprise to commit genocide on the grounds that he lacked genocidal intent,
and found him guilty of the lesser charge of aiding and abetting genocide.
Of the many cases made over the years for an expansive definition of genocide, two of
the most compelling are presented in the next two essays included in this volume. Focusing

5 Prosecutor v. Jelisic, ICTY-I-95-10, para. 70.

6 Prosecutor v. Akayesu, ICTR-96-4-T, paras 523-24.
7 In the Elements of Crimes adopted by the Assembly of State Parties of the International
Criminal Court in 2002, the word ‘plan’ is not used but the following element is stipulated for each act
of genocide: ‘The conduct took place in the context of a manifest pattern of similar conduct directed
against that group or was conduct that could itself effect such destruction’ (ICC-ASP/l/3(part II-B)).
8 Prosecutor v. Radislav Krstic, ICTY-IT-98-33-A, paras 5-38.
 Genocide and Human Rights xv

on the violations against women committed in the wars in the former Yugoslavia, Catherine
MacKinnon (Chapter 4) argues that the prevailing notion of genocide does not encompass
the sex-specific violations committed against women. At the same time, domestic violence
or attacks on prostitutes are considered as belonging to the private sphere and therefore not
considered human rights violations for which the state is held responsible. ‘What is done to
women is either too specific to women to be seen as human or too generic to human beings
to be seen as specific to women. ... rapes in this war are not grasped as either a strategy in
genocide or a practice of misogyny, far less both at once.’ The consequence is to leave women
multiply vulnerable and crimes against them unpunished. A number of women’s activists and
jurists worked during the 1990s to advance the understanding of sexual violence in war or
mass atrocity, and in 1998 in the Akayesu case the Rwanda Tribunal recognized for the first
time that rape and sexual violence can constitute genocide if they are committed with the
specific intent that characterizes the crime.9
Complementing these developments is a number of articles prompted by Adam Jones’s
essay ‘Gendercide and Genocide’(2000). The term ‘gendercide’ had been used by Mary Anne
Warren in her 1985 book Gendercide: The Implications o f Sex Selection (1985). Warren had
focused on violence against women, but Jones notes that: ‘In fact, however, non-combatant
men have been and continue to be the most frequent targets of mass killing and genocidal
slaughter, as well as a host of lesser atrocities and abuses. The mass killing of males, particularly
of “battle-age” men, has roots deep in the history of conflict between human communities’
(Jones, 2000). Jones defines ‘gendercide’ inclusively as ‘gender-selective mass killing’ and
applies the term to the targeted killing of either women or men on account of their sex.
Another area where the international law on genocide has been criticized as deficient is in
the protection of political groups. Lemkin had originally envisaged the crime of genocide as
including the destruction of political groups, and the 1946 UN General Assembly Resolution
had employed a definition of genocide which included such groups. However, the category
was deleted in final negotiations over the text of the Genocide Convention, ostensibly on the
rationale that political groupings were less stable or homogeneous than the other categories,
but in reality through the opposition of states, including the Soviet Union, which did not want
to constrain their ability to act against subversives.10 Criticisms of the omission were listed
by the Special Rapporteur of the UN Sub-Commission on Prevention of Discrimination and
Protection of Minorities in his 1985 report on genocide, (UN Sub-Commission, 1985, para.
36), and it is characterized by Beth Van Schaack in Chapter 5 as the Convention’s ‘blind spot’.
She considers as a case study the mass killing perpetrated by the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia,
often described as ‘auto-genocide’, or the destruction of a group by its own members:

4... much of what occurred in Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge does not match the limited definition
of the crime provided by the Genocide Convention. Only the extermination of ethnic minorities,
such as the Vietnamese and the Chaim, constitutes genocide pursuant to the Genocide Convention;
other groups of victims, such as former Lon N01 supporters and alleged Khmer Rouge dissidents,

9 Akayesu, para. 731. See also Karagiannakis (1999 p. 479).

10 For a summary list of the arguments, see UN Sub-Commission on Prevention of Discrimination
and Protection of Minorities (1985, para. 35), ‘Revised and updated report on the question of the
prevention and punishment of the crime of genocide’, prepared by Mr B. Whitaker, E/CN.4/Sub.2/1985/6,
para. 35.
xvi Genocide and Human Rights

constitute political groups that are not covered by the Convention. ... Yet all of the Khmer Rouge’s
victims were subjected to a campaign of extermination, the terrifying scope of which had not been
seen since the Holocaust’; (see also Hannum, 1989, p. 82)

Van Schaack contends, however, that under customary international law the concept
of genocide is much broader, arguably extending to the destruction of any human group.
Moreover, because this customary prohibition on genocide has the status of jus cogens - that
is, a peremptory norm of general international law from which no derogation is permitted
- it effectively overrides any narrower conventional definition. With the new law of the
International Criminal Court and Tribunals the definition of genocide has now settled on the
formulation in the Genocide Convention, but Van Schaack’s essay reminds us that in many
national jurisdictions the scope of the crime continues to be defined more broadly. In some
respects, it may matter less than it did even in 1997: the mass killing of political or social
groups may not carry the particular stigma of genocide, but the fact that both the ‘responsibility
to protect’ and international criminal jurisdictions cover crimes against humanity and war
crimes side by side with genocide means that such killing is exempt neither from preventive
intervention nor punishment.

Understanding Genocide and Mass Violations of Rights

The preconditions, causes and development of genocide are investigated in the growing
sociological literature, pioneered by scholars including Leo Kuper, Helen Fein, Irving
Horowitz, Frank Chalk and Kurt Jonassohn. The dominant method is comparative analysis,
although one that needs to take account of the unique circumstances of each case. The essay
included here by Helen Fein (Chapter 6) considers the extermination of the Armenians by the
Ottoman Turks together with that of the Jews and Gypsies by Nazi Germany. Fein notes that
both Armenians and European Jews had repeatedly been targets of collective violence for a
long period: ‘ Violence was legitimated against them because both Jews and Armenians had
been defined outside the sanctified universe o f obligation by the dominant religion ... ’ (italics
in original). Her conclusions about the relationship between genocide and war interestingly
would also apply to the later case of the Rwandan genocide:

War enabled both states to murder with impunity; it obscured the visibility of their action and ensured
freedom from sanctions. ... Extermination of the victims was a prime end-in-itself. Military needs
were subordinated by the Turks in order to exterminate the Armenians, as they were by the Germans
who neglected their own needs for labor and transport while exterminating the Jews.

But Fein also notes, of course, major differences between the cases, including that the
Armenians were a territorially cohesive minority, organized as a collectivity, while German
Jews were relatively integrated into German society and participated in mainstream political
parties.
Although the destruction of the Armenians is sometimes described as the first genocide
of the twentieth century, Benjamin Madley in Chapter 7 reminds us that there were earlier
examples. He analyses three cases of what he describes as ‘frontier genocide’ perpetrated by
colonial settlers against the Aboriginal Tasmanians, the Yuki of California and the Herero in
 Genocide and Human Rights xvii

Namibia. Madley notes that they reveal ‘a surprisingly congruent pattern despite the fact that
the cases took place on different continents, under different regimes, and in different periods’.
Following colonial invasion, the indigenous peoples respond to the denial of their basic rights
and the threat to their livelihoods by launching attacks on the settlers. Finding that it cannot
quickly defeat the guerilla insurgency by conventional warfare, the colonial regime turns
to genocide, as in the infamous order issued in Namibia to his officers by German General
Lothar von Trotha: ‘All Hereros must leave the country. ... Within the German borders, every
Herero, with or without weapons ... will be shot. I shall no longer shelter women and children. ...
This is my message to the Herero nation.’
In his arresting essay ‘On Genocide’, presented to the Russell Vietnam War Crimes
Tribunal11 in 1967 and now widely available on the Internet, Jean-Paul Sartre had described
the US war in Vietnam as following in this tradition:

... the colonial soldiers soon learned that their most redoubtable foes were the silent, stubborn
peasants who, just one kilometer from the scene of the ambush which had wiped out a regiment,
knew nothing, had seen nothing. And since it was the unity of an entire people which held the
conventional army at bay, the only anti-guerrilla strategy which could work was the destruction of this
people, in other words, of civilians, of women and children. ... America is guilty of continuing and
intensifying the war despite the fact that every day its leaders realize more acutely, from the reports
of the military commanders, that the only way to win is ‘to free Vietnam of all the Vietnamese’.

But whereas earlier colonists were often constrained by the need to maintain the local
population as a source of cheap labour, Sartre controversially posited the Vietnam war as the
neo-colonial relationship carried to its logical conclusion:

... it is the greatest power on earth against a poor peasant people. ... Total war presupposes a
certain balance of forces, a certain reciprocity. Colonial wars were not reciprocal, but the interests
of the colonialists limited the scope of genocide. The present genocide, the end result of the
unequal development of societies, is total war waged to the limit by one side, without the slightest
reciprocity.

The violent perversion of language that characterizes genocide was remarked on by Sartre as
well as all the authors in this section, and it is the central theme of William Schabas’s essay
on hate speech in Rwanda (Chapter 8). He describes how the Rwandan media, including
the news-sheet Kangura and the popular radio station Radio-télévision libre des milles
collines, prepared the road to genocide through disseminating anti-Tutsi propaganda and later
instigating and partly coordinating the killing: ‘A well-read and well-informed génocidaire
will know that at the early stages of planning of the “crime of crimes”, his or her money
is better spent not in purchasing machetes, or Kalatchnikovs, or Zyklon В gas, but rather
investing in radio transmitters and photocopy machines.’ Author of the leading work on
Genocide in International Law (2000), Schabas explains how another lacuna in the Genocide
Convention, the failure to criminalize hate propaganda, has since been largely filled by other
human rights treaties.

11 The tribunal was a non-governmental initiative, established under the auspices of the philosopher
Bertrand Russell, that met in Roskilde, Denmark.
xviii Genocide and Human Rights

The last two essays in Part II move to psychological perspectives on what makes genocide
possible, particularly in the minds of rank-and-file perpetrators, or of bystanders. The
writings of Holocaust survivors such as Primo Levi have long engendered a debate about
whether genocide is something that could happen anywhere, something of which ‘we are all’
capable. Ervin Staub (Chapter 9), looks at how certain cultural-societal characteristics create
a predisposition for group violence, and then how perpetrators’ actions become more extreme
as they move along a ‘continuum of destruction’. The reaction or passivity of bystanders is
important for reinforcing the behaviour of perpetrators - or challenging it. An influential study
published by Christopher Browning (1993) looked at how the police reservists or ‘ordinary
men’ that made up German Auxiliary Police Battalion 101 readily participated in the mass
murder of civilians in Poland, and Daniel Jonah Goldhagen later posited that such men were
typical of Germans of the period as a whole, motivated by ‘eliminationist anti-Semitism’
(Goldhagen, 1996). Michael Mann submits the ‘ordinary men’ hypothesis to some statistical
analysis in Chapter 10. Looking at the biographies of over fifteen hundred presumed German
war criminals from court records, newspaper reports and scholarly studies, he finds in fact
that they were not so ordinary: there was a preponderance of long-term Nazis, with pre-
war extremism and careers in violence common. But their ideology emerged ‘progressively,
institutionally, and through sub-cultural reinforcement’.

Preventing Genocide

It is one thing to attempt to understand genocide better; another to predict it. The causal
factors associated with genocide and state mass murder in the sociological literature have only
recently been submitted to more rigorous statistical testing. Probably the first quantitative,
longitudinal study was undertaken by R.J. Rummel in 1995, whose main finding was the very
strong relationship between concentration of government power and state mass murder: ‘In
other words, power kills, and absolute power kills absolutely’ (Rummel, 1995, pp. 3-26).
Matthew Krain accepted this relationship but saw it as a prerequisite, contending that ‘the
occurrence of openings in the political opportunity structure [such as wars, decolonization
and extra-constitutional change] rather than the degree of concentration of power best predicts
onset and differing degrees of severity of genocides and politicides’ (Krain, 1997, pp. 331-
60). Barbara Harff has published a number of comparative studies on genocide and mass
killing with lessons for early warning, often in collaboration with Ted Robert Gurr, and in
the essay included here as Chapter 11, she presents a model of the antecedents of genocide
and political mass murder that she believes makes it possible to distinguish with 74 per cent
accuracy between internal wars and regime collapses that do and those that do not lead to
geno-/politicide. The six key antecedents she identifies are political upheaval, prior instances
of genocide, exclusionary ideology of the ruling elite, autocracy, a political elite representing
an ethnic minority, and low openness to international trade.
Improvements in early warning in the last decade have, of course, not necessarily led to
effective preventive action, as the examples of the Democratic Republic of Congo and Sudan
inter alia tragically illustrate. As far as genocide is concerned, it is a common misconception
that the crime needs to have been committed before the international community is under an
obligation to act. In fact under the Genocide Convention, states are bound by an undertaking
‘to prevent’ the crime and Article VIII enables any state to call on the Security Council or
 Genocide and Human Rights xix

other UN organs to take appropriate action ‘for the prevention and suppression of acts of
genocide’ (emphasis added). Notably, the original draft of this article had a qualifying clause,
requiring crimes under the Convention to have been committed or for there to be ‘serious
reasons for suspecting that such crimes have been committed... ’, but this was dropped in the
final version, making it clear that states did not have to wait for genocide to be accomplished
before launching a call to action. International intervention in such cases, however, even
with the newly declared ‘responsibility to protect’, is likely to remain a contested area of
international law.
In a very wide-ranging essay, Louis René Beres (Chapter 12) examines the jurisprudential
underpinning for preventive action and international intervention, including from natural law,
leading jurists such as Vattel, and early state practice. He ends by considering the possibility
of a restructured international legal order, in which the current horizontal system of sovereign
states is superseded by a more centralized system of world government which could command
authority for the protection of human rights.
Considering ‘whether a war may be justly undertaken in defence of another’s subjects’,
Grotius was inclined to accept foreign interference in the sovereign affairs of another kingdom
only where the wrong was obvious and egregious: ‘.. .where a Busiris, a Phalaris or a Thracian
Diomede provoke their people to despair and resistance by unheard of cruelties, having
themselves abandoned all the laws of nature, they lose the rights of independent sovereigns,
and can no longer claim the privilege of the law of nations’ (Grotius, De jure, II. xxv). But at
what point does a ruler’s behaviour pass beyond the pale? And following the prohibition on
the use of force in the United Nations Charter, who holds the right of intervention?
In March 1999 the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) initiated military action
against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, without the authorization of the UN Security
Council,12 with the stated aim of ending violence in the province of Kosovo and preventing
further humanitarian catastrophe. There followed a major escalation of human rights
violations and the expulsion or displacement of most of Kosovo’s ethnic Albanian population
before Yugoslavia capitulated and most of the refugees were able to return. The next two
authors represented in this volume assess the Kosovo case in the course of essays on armed
humanitarian intervention. Considered as a question of international relations, Jack Donnelly
describes how mixed motives and partisan abuse severely complicate the emergence of a new
norm of humanitarian intervention (Chapter 13). He nonetheless suggests that, following the
change in international society after the Cold War, intervention may be justifiable in some
circumstances, and posits a limited defence of the Kosovo intervention, but only if we allow
the assumption that in Kosovo ‘genocide was either imminent or already under way’. As
an international lawyer, Jonathan Chamey (Chapter 14) holds that ‘Indisputably, the NATO
intervention through its bombing campaign violated the UN Charter and international law.’
Moreover, regardless of the intentions, it constitutes an unfortunate precedent for states to use
force: ‘As now conceived, the so-called doctrine of humanitarian intervention can lead to an
escalation of international violence, discord, and disorder and diminish protections of human
rights worldwide.’ However, it may be ethically desirable for the international community
to develop the law regarding humanitarian intervention, and he sketches the outline of a

12 Under Chapter VII of the UN Charter, the Security Council is empowered to take enforcement
measures for the restoration and maintenance of international peace and security.
xx Genocide and Human Rights

possible regime for regulating it, including an important role for regional intergovernmental
organizations and compulsory jurisdiction of both the International Court of Justice and
the International Criminal Court. His comments are particularly relevant in the light of the
continuing controversy over the US-led intervention in Iraq, which had the stated aim of
preventing the Iraqi government from acquiring weapons of mass destruction but which has
been justified ex post facto by some politicians as a response to Iraqi human rights abuses,
including genocide against the Kurds.
Commentators in the mass media often equate international action in response to the threat
of genocide with armed intervention, but in practice a wide range of possible non-violent
actions to avert mass abuses exist, including preventive diplomacy, conciliation and mediation,
in-country human rights monitoring or observation, peace-building assistance, international
exposure, international pressure, aid conditionality, and consideration of sanctions or other
countermeasures, as well as measures to punish and deter perpetrators. In a concise essay
(Chapter 15), W. Michael Reisman looks specifically at the legal responses to massive
violations of human rights, seeing them in relation to a set of fundamental goals for protecting,
restoring and improving public order. The institutional responses he notes - from human rights
law, the law of state responsibility and the developing law of liability without fault, through
to international criminal tribunals and truth commissions and amnesties - mostly come into
play after the fact, but Reisman’s point is that institutional responses need to be fashioned
according to the unique circumstances of each case ‘such that [they] provide the greatest
return on all the relevant goals of public order’, including, for example, the suspension of
current violations, prevention of future violations and restoration of public order.

Punishment and Reconciliation

The recent legal and political developments noted earlier, such as the creation of international
tribunals, have focused heavily on punishment rather than on prevention (although the two
are, of course, related). They have been seen as a concerted attempt to realize the legacy of
the Nuremberg and Tokyo trials after the Second World War, though in the circumstances of
the late twentieth century where the vast majority of atrocities took place in the context of
internal armed conflicts (see generally Lattimer and Sands, 2003; also Meron, 1995). The
next three essays in this volume look at the question of accountability for mass violations
from different perspectives, but the tension between punishment and other social goals such
as reconciliation and peace-building is an enduring theme. Drawing on the experience of
societies which have attempted to deal with the legacy of mass abuses, in Latin America and
elsewhere, Juan Méndez (Chapter 16) identifies a number of emerging principles of universal
applicability and the state obligations that fall under them, including the obligation to overcome
impunity for crimes under international law. With other human rights advocates, he disputes
the misconceptions that prosecutions are inherently inimical to peace and reconciliation, and
that ‘truth’ (in the form of a truth commission report) is somehow an alternative to justice
(see also Bassiouni, 1996; cf. Osiel, 2001, p. 118). In 2004 Méndez was appointed the UN’s
first Special Adviser to the Secretary-General on the Prevention of Genocide, a new post
established by Kofi Annan on the tenth anniversary of the Rwandan genocide.
The criminologist Stanley Cohen also surveys (Chapter 17) the experience of different
countries in implementing transitional justice, or ‘policing the past’, including the
 Genocide and Human Rights xxi

controversial technique of lustration (the mass application of administrative penalties, such

as disqualification from employment) to those associated with a former regime. The many
case-histories he cites help reveal the complexity of the issues faced by societies in transition,
including in relation to social control over time.13
In Chapter 18, David Wippman takes issue with supporters of international criminal justice
who base their arguments on the ability of prosecutions to deter future atrocities. In addition
to noting problems of institutional capacity with the international tribunals, he draws on the
findings of a survey by the International Committee of the Red Cross in Bosnia as to why
combatants violate international humanitarian law: ‘The limits did not give way because
the [Geneva] Conventions or the norms were unknown or foreign to the participants. They
broke down under the pressure of nationalist patterns and hatred’, as well as other wartime
considerations. Wippman’s pessimism about institutional support for the International Criminal
Court and prosecutions in some country situations, such as Sierra Leone, now appears out of
date, but that does not affect his general contention, that ‘the connection between international
prosecutions and actual deterrence of future atrocities is at best a plausible but largely untested
assumption’.
It is often said that one of the principal long-term achievements of the Nuremberg trials
was the establishment of an incontrovertible body of evidence on the war crimes and crimes
against humanity committed by the Nazi government. However, this has not prevented a
number of political activists and academics from denying the scale of those crimes, or indeed
the fact that many of them happened at all. Israel Chamy (Chapter 19), editor-in-chief of
the Encyclopaedia o f Genocide, describes the widespread phenomenon of genocide denial
and speculates as to its causes and motives. (Perhaps the most remarkable example is the
continuing attempt by the Turkish government to deny the essential facts of the Armenian
genocide, despite the existence of a large number of contemporary reports of the atrocities
and detailed scholarship, most notably by Vahakn Dadrian, into official documents of the
period (Dadrian, 1999; also Balakian 2003). Chamy’s encyclopaedic instincts may lead him
to categorize as denial some forms of expression which are surely less pernicious, but his
essay remains a disturbing inquiry into how the memory of so many deaths can be erased,
even within a generation.
The insult of denial is but one of the obstacles confronted by societies where former
perpetrators and the persecuted are expected to live side by side. Much writing about
reconciliation - certainly most political speech-writing - fails to rise above speciousness
or a kind of banal piety. John Bomeman’s provocative essay, included here as Chapter 20,
is rare in that it does not shrink from confronting the enormity of what is asked, both in
psychological and sociopolitical terms, from a community in order to achieve a measure of
reconciliation after mass atrocity. He discusses prevalent strategies for recuperating loss,
including physical reproduction and revenge, and posits two alternative processes, the
social practice of witnessing and retributive justice. His recommendations for international
peacekeeping efforts, that peacekeepers could serve as crucial witnesses when stationed at the

13 See also Kritz (1996). The views of the general public on prosecutions, lustration and other
accountability mechanisms were analysed in a rare article by Susanne Karstedt (1998) comparing shifts
in German public opinion following the Second World War and then again in post-communist East
Germany after 1989.
xxii Genocide and Human Rights

site of violence and could be trained to listen for departures from violence, were praised in a
response by Richard Falk, who noted that they ‘might have enabled the United Nations’ effort
in Kosovo to have been more alert to the dangers facing the Serb minority after the NATO
war of 1999’, including the practice of ‘reverse ethnic cleansing’ (Falk 2003). Falk questions
Bomeman’s ‘endorsement of “retributive justice” as a necessary element in the reconciling
process’, but Bomeman’s contention is that without redress, ‘forgiveness may ... actually be
harmful - conducive to a repression, or forgetting, of the initial conditions that lead to the
harm’, and thus increasing the likelihood of repetition.
In the lexicon of political clichés on genocide, ‘We will never forget’ is almost as popular as
‘Never again’. Both characterize a discourse of resolute optimism that is ill-equipped to deal
with the ongoing threat - and practice - of mass killing. Much of the literature on genocide
appears understandably motivated by an ambition to move beyond a simple memorialization,
yet at precisely the moment at which it attempts to signal a departure from the past, it is in
danger of slipping into the banality of the political speech. The near impossibility of thinking
that - that what is done cannot be undone, and will be done again, that the horror of the past is
also the future - haunts the literature. Often, what is most valuable are not the empty visions
of a world without genocide, but the contributions directed towards confronting the present,
such as Bomeman’s insight that departures from violence ‘are not a matter of finding the
proper balance between remembering and forgetting but of reconciling the self and the group
with the permanence of loss’.

References

Balakian, Peter (2003), The Burning Tigris, New York: Harper Collins.
Bassiouni, M. Cherif (1996), ‘Searching for Peace and Achieving Justice: The Need for Accountability’,
Law and Contemporary Problems, 59, pp. 9-28.
Browning, Christopher (1993), Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in
Poland, New York: Harper Collins.
Charny, Israel (ed.) (1999), Encyclopaedia o f Genocide, Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO.
Dadrian, Vahakn N. (2003), ‘Genocide as a Problem of National and International Law: The World War
I Armenian Case and its Contemporary Legal Ramifications’, Yale Journal o f International Law, 14,
pp. 221-334.
Falk, Richard (2003), ‘Doubting the Unconditional Need for a Retribution’, Public Culture, 15(1), pp.
191-94.
Goldhagen, Daniel J. (1996), Hitler s Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust, New
York: Knopf.
Grotius, Hugo, (1901 )D e jure belli ac p a d s , New York and London: M. Walter Dunne
Hannum, Hurst (1989), ‘International Law and Cambodian Genocide: The Sounds of Silence’, Human
Rights Quarterly, 11, pp. 82-138.
Jones, Adam (2000), ‘Gendercide and Genocide’, Journal o f Genocide Research, 2 (2), pp. 185-211.
Karagiannakis, Magdaline (1999), ‘The Definition of Rape and Its Characterization as an Act of
Genocide - A Review of the Jurisprudence of the International Criminal Tribunals for Rwanda and
the Former Yugoslavia’, Leiden Journal o f International Law, 12, pp. 479-90.
Karstedt, Susanne (1998), ‘Coming to Terms with the Past in Germany after 1945 and 1989: Public
Judgements on Procedures and Justice’, Law and Policy, 20, p. 15-55.
Krain, Matthew (1997), ‘State-Sponsored Mass Murder: The Onset and Severity of Genocides and
Politicides’, Journal o f Conflict Resolution, 41, pp. 331-60.
 Genocide and Human Rights xxiii

Kritz, Neil J. (1996), ‘Coming to Terms with Atrocities: A Review of Accountability Mechanisms for
Mass Violations of Human Rights’, Law and Contemporary Problems, 59, p. 127-52.
Lattimer, Mark and Sands, Philippe (2003), Justice fo r Crimes Against Humanity, Oxford: Hart.
Lemkin, Raphael (1944), Axis Rule in Occupied Europe, Washington DC: Carnegie Endowment for
International Peace.
Meron, Theodor (1995), ‘International Criminalization of Internal Atrocities’, American Journal o f
International Law, 89, p. 554-77
Osiel, Mark (2001), ‘Why Prosecute?’ Critics of Punishment for Mass Atrocity’, Human Rights
Quarterly, 22, p. 118-25.
Power, Samantha (2002), A Problem from Hell: America and the Age o f Genocide, New York: Basic
Books.
Rummel, R.J. (1995), ‘Democracy, Power, Genocide and Mass Murder’, Journal o f Conflict Resolution,
39, pp. 3-26.
Schabas, William A. (2000), Genocide in International Law, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
UN Sub-Commission on Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities (1985), Revised
and Updated Report on the Question o f the Prevention and Punishment o f the Crime o f Genocide,
prepared by Mr B. Whitaker, E/CN.4/Sub.2/1985/i.
Warren, Mary Anne (1985), Gendercide: The Implications o f Sex Selection, New Jersey: Rowman and
Littlefield.
 Part I
Definitions and Leglislation
 [1]
GENOCIDE AS A CRIME UNDER INTERNATIONAL LAW

Raphael Lemkin

The practices of the National Socialist Government in Germany resulting

in destruction of entire human groups gave impetus to a reconsideration
of certain principles of international law. The question arose whether sov-
ereignty goes so far that a government can destroy with impunity its own
4 Genocide and Human Rights

146 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF INTERNATIONAL LAW

citizens and whether such acts of destruction are domestic affairs or matters
of international concern. Practically speaking, should the moral right of
humanitarian intervention be converted into a right under international
law ?1 If the destruction of human groups is a problem of international
concern, then such acts should be treated as crimes under the law of na-
tions, like piracy, and every state should be able to take jurisdiction over
such acts irrespective of the nationality of the offender and of the place
where the crime was committed.
In line with this thought the present writer submitted a proposal to the
International Conference for Unification of Criminal Law held in Madrid
in 1933 to declare the destruction of racial, religious or social collectivities
a crime under the law of nations (delictum iuris gentium) .2
There was envisaged the creation of two new international crimes: the
crime of barbarity, consisting in the extermination of racial, religious or
social collectivities, and the crime of vandalism, consisting in the destruc-
tion of cultural and artistic works of these groups. The intention was to
declare these crimes punishable by any country in which the culprit might
be caught, regardless of the criminal’s nationality or the place where the
crime was committed.3 This proposal was not accepted. Much later, on
November 22,1946, during the discussion on genocide in the United Nations
General Assemby, Sir Hartley Shawcross, United Kingdom Attorney Gen-
1 Although some humanitarian intervention stigmatized religious persecutions by the
use of not-quite-legal terms, it has always been felt that such interventions are based
essentially on considerations of international morality. Cpmpare in this respect com-
munication from Secretary of State Hay to Mr. Wilson, United States Minister to Rou-
mania, on July 17, 1902, in connection with the persecution of the Roumanian Jews:
“ This government cannot be a tacit party to such an international wrong” (Moore,
Digest, Vol. VI, p. 364), but also instructions from Mr. Lansing to Ambassador Morgen-
thau to use his good offices for the 1i amelioration of conditions of the Armenians, in-
forming Turkish Government that this persecution is destroying the feeling of good will
which the people of the United States have always held toward Turkey ’ 1 (Foreign Béla-
tions, 1915, Supplement, p. 988).
2 See Raphael Lemkin, Le terrorisme, in Actes de la Ve Conférence Internationale pour
VUnification du Droit pénal, Paris, Pedone, 1935, and in particular by the same author
the supplement to the above report entitled Les Actes Créant im da/nger Général (inter‫־‬
étatique) considérés comme délits de droit des gens: Paris, Pedone, 1933.
3 The formulation ran as follows :
,Whosoever, out of hatred towards a racial, religious or social collectivty, or with
a view to the extermination thereof, undertakes a punishable action against the life,
bodily integrity, liberty, dignity or economic existence of a person belonging to such
a collectivity, is liable, for the crime of barbarity, to a penalty of . . . unless his
deed falls within a more severe provision of the given code.
Whosoever, either out of hatred towards a racial, religious or social collectivity,
or with a view to the extermination thereof, destroys its cultural or artistic works,
w ill be liable for the crime of vandalism, to a penalty of . . . unless his deed falls
within a more severe pro vison of the given code.
The aboye crimes will be prosecuted and punished irrespective of the place where
the crime was committed and of the nationality of the offender, according to the
law of the country where the offender was apprehended.
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
un combattimento navale di tremila uomini, che susseguito fu da una
pugna di fanti. Perciocchè gli Ateniesi, superato avendo i Siracusani
(giacchè sotto questo nome pugnato avevano), scesero nell’isola, ed
assalito avendo certo muro che intorno al monimento di quel luogo
era condotto, lo presero. Per cento giorni [178] durarono quegli
spettacoli atti a pascere la vista. Ma utile riuscì ancor questo alla
plebe, perchè Tito piccioli globi di legno da luogo eminente nel teatro
gettava, i quali tessere contenevano coll’indicazione di qualche
vivanda, di una veste, e di un vaso d’argento o d’oro, di cavalli, di
giumenti, di bestiami e di servi. Chiunque, alcuno di quei globetti
coglieva, portavalo al dispensatore de’ donativi, e la cosa che dentro
era scritta, conseguiva».
Tito dedicò l’Anfiteatro in nome proprio e non in quello del padre; ed
a questa dedicazione, nonchè alle sontuose feste e giuochi in
quell’occasione celebrati, alludono due medaglie, portanti nella parte
dritta la figura di Tito, assisa sopra trofei ed in atto di presentare un
ramoscello d’olivo; e, sul rovescio, l’Anfiteatro con la Mèta Sudante a
sinistra [179], ed un portico a doppio ordine di colonne a destra:
prospetto che corrisponde alla parte dell’edificio che guarda il Celio,
il cui arco, prossimo al centrale del primo ordine esterno, portava il
numero I [180]. Che il cono che osservasi a sinistra dell’Anfiteatro
rappresenti la Mèta Sudante, checchè ne dica il Maffei [181], non v’ha
ormai chi dubiti. Ma che cosa sia quel portico a doppio ordine di
colonne che si scorge a destra, è ancora molto disputabile. Se col
Guattani [182] e col Nibby [183] si volesse ritenere che quel portico
abbia comunicato col palazzo di Tito sull’Esquilino, noi non ci
sapremmo spiegare come esso si potesse vedere dal lato opposto
dell’Anfiteatro. Il prospetto dell’edificio rappresentato nella medaglia
corrisponde, come si è detto, alla parte che guarda il Celio. Ma a
destra di chi guarda l’arco centrale, prossimo al fornice che portava il
numero I, non v’è certamente l’Esquilino. Che cosa adunque
potrebbe rappresentare quel portico? Forse un luogo ove
s’intrattenevano le persone di riguardo, allor chè i raggi del sole eran
troppo ardenti, facendovi combattere qualche coppia di
gladiatori? [184] — Forse un luogo coperto destinato al ritiro di chi
voleva sollevarsi un poco dall’incomodo di stare nell’Anfiteatro molto
tempo per tornarvi tosto, o per ristorarsi, giacchè nell’Anfiteatro era
proibito il bere, ecc.? [185] — Forse un apoditerio, o finalmente un
propilèo? [186].
Fra tante opinioni, anch’io mi permetto esprimere la mia.
Sappiamo che l’Anfiteatro è opera dei Flavî: Vespasiano lo
incominciò, Tito proseguì l’edificio e lo dedicò, Domiziano lo portò a
compimento. Sappiamo inoltre che Tito costrusse presso l’Anfiteatro
le sue Terme, e che, finalmente, Domiziano ristabilì la Mèta Sudante,
facendola assai bella e decorata [187]. Non potremmo adunque
congetturare che in quelle medaglie si siano volute commemorare
simultaneamente le tre famose opere dei Flavî, vale a dire,
l’Anfiteatro, le Terme e la Mèta Sudante? E questa congettura non si
rende ancor più verosimile se si rifletta che solamente nelle
medaglie dei Flavî vediamo effigiato il portico a doppio ordine di
colonne? Se così fosse, il portico di cui parliamo sarebbe una parte
delle Thermae Titianae [188]. Le ragioni poi che ci spingono a ritenere
le Terme di Tito verso il Laterano piuttosto che sull’Esquilie, le
esporremo a suo luogo [189].
La prima di queste medaglie ha l’iscrizione:

IMP. T. CAES. VESP. AVG. P. M. TR. PPP. COS. VIII

S. C. [190]
Anno 883/80

Tito fu console per l’ottava volta l’anno 80; i titoli corrispondono a

quelli di un Imperatore vivente. L’altra medaglia ci mostra Tito già
morto, poichè gli si dà in essa il titolo di DIVO. [191] Il Nibby opina che
Domiziano sia stato colui il quale fece coniare queste due medaglie;
e che, per conservare quest’imperatore la data della dedicazione
fatta dal fratello, abbia unito alla prima medaglia i titoli di lui come
ancor vivente; e, sull’altra, ne abbia fatta l’apoteosi, dandogli il titolo
di DIVO: [192]
DIVO. AVG. T. DIVI VESP. F. VESPASIAN S. C.
 NUMMI COMMEMORATIVI RIPRODOTTI DAGLI ORIGINALI CHE SI
CONSERVANO NEL GABINETTO NUMISMATICO DELLA BIBLIOTECA
NAZIONALE DI PARIGI.

Il Donaldson [193] dà la riproduzione litografica di questa medaglia,

con l’annotazione delle varianti. Egli ritiene non essere
ingiustificabile il supporre che l’Anfiteatro fosse eretto in origine
coll’attico rappresentato in questa medaglia, ma che dopo le
conflagrazioni e dilapidazioni alle quali andò soggetto in tre secoli, si
fosse ridotto l’attico ad un altezza maggiore; non potendo
persuadersi che nella medaglia si fosse fatto un attico tanto basso
per rappresentare un attico tanto alto quale noi lo vediamo, perchè
questo supererebbe la convenzionale licenza che si osserva
comunemente nelle medaglie. L’Eckel [194] opina che la suddetta
medaglia sia falsa, e basa la sua tesi principalmente sull’esecuzione,
la quale, dice, non è d’arte romana ma d’arte moderna. A questa
obiezione il Donaldson non risponde. Ma anche ammesso che il
nummo di cui parliamo non sia d’arte moderna ma romana, noi non
potremmo mai dedurne che originariamente l’Anfiteatro non avesse
quattro ordini quanti al presente se ne ravvisano [195] e quanti se ne
riscontrano pur anche in una forma di stucco di epoca posteriore,
rinvenuta da A. Pellegrini al V miglio della Via Portuense e mostrata
in un’adunanza dell’Istituto di Corrispondenza Archeologica [196]. Io
ho esaminata la riproduzione litografica del Donaldson [197]; ho pur
studiate altre medaglie ed ho dovuto convincermi che esse
presentan tutte, oltre ai tre ordini di arcate, il quarto piano con
pilastri, finestre e dischi [198]; ad eccezione delle medaglie di Severo
Alessandro, le quali, pur avendo finestre e dischi nel quarto piano,
mancano di pilastri: ed ho inoltre osservato che in tutte le medaglie
d’età posteriore, l’attico è rappresentato nella stessa proporzione
relativamente agli ordini arcuati, benchè a quell’epoca fosse tant’alto
quanto al presente lo vediamo [199].
Cassiodoro [200] attribuisce a Tito le ingenti spese e tutta la gloria del
nostro edificio, dicendoci che vi versò un fiume di ricchezze, e che
colla somma spesa si sarebbe potuto fabbricare una città capitale.
Barthelemy ed il P. Jacquier [201], formando un calcolo
approssimativo delle spese (secondo i prezzi in vigore verso l’anno
1756) valutarono il solo muro esterno dell’Anfiteatro 2,218,065 scudi,
ossia L. 11,825,349,37. Noi non giudicheremo sull’esattezza delle
cifre esposte, giacchè queste sono da calcolarsi giusta i prezzi della
mano d’opera in vigore al tempo dei citati scrittori: prezzi, del resto,
che ai dì nostri si sarebbero quasi triplicati.
«L’erezione e la dedicazione dell’Anfiteatro Flavio, dice, e
giustamente, il Ch.º R. Lanciani [202], debbono essere state ricordate
da grandi iscrizioni monumentali contemporanee. Hübner [203],
illustrando le iscrizioni dell’Anfiteatro note nel 1856, trascrive tre
frammenti di un epistilio di pietra tiburtina: infixa muro exteriori litteris
aevo Titi vel Domitiani non indignis.

ESA VST
V M VRA
VI
(C. I, l. IV, parte 4, 32254).

Questi frammenti potrebbero facilmente prestarsi al supplemento:

Imp. T. CaESAr divi f. Vespasianus Aug VST us; ma possono anche
convenire a qualunque altro predecessore di Sev. Alessandro, del
quale sappiamo esser stata restaurata quella parte più alta del
Colosseo».
Contemporanee all’edificazione del nostro Anfiteatro debbono anche
credersi alcune iscrizioni dipinte a pennello sui travertini delle
arcuazioni del secondo ambulacro interiore; e si trovano inseriti nel
c. I, l. VI, parte 4, 32254.
 CAPITOLO SECONDO.
Descrizione della parte esterna dell’Anfiteatro Flavio —
Dimensioni — Architettura — Materiali usati nella costruzione
— Statue — Clipei — Perni e spranghe — Sezione.

La forma dell’Anfiteatro Flavio è ovale, come ovali sono

generalmente tutti gli anfiteatrali edificî [204]. La lunghezza dell’asse
maggiore di questo grande ovale, compreso il primo gradino che
circonda la mole, è di m. 191,20; quella dell’asse minore è di m.
158,50. La periferia, presa sempre sul ciglio del detto gradino, dà m.
546. L’altezza, dal livello stradale alla sommità, è di metri 50 [205].
Un’area lastricata di travertini, larga m. 17,60, attornia l’Anfiteatro,
secondandone la curva. È quella terminata da grossi cippi di
travertino, tagliati superiormente a semicerchio, alti m. 1,75, larghi
m. 0,76 e grossi m. 0,60 [206]; distano l’uno dall’altro m. 3,40, e nella
loro faccia interna rimangon tracce dell’impernatura, forse delle
sbarre metalliche, che collegavano l’un cippo con l’altro.
L’intiera mole sorge esternamente sopra due gradini, il primo dei
quali ha m. 0,425 di pedata e m. 0,20 di alzata; il secondo m. 0,18 di
alzata, e, dal ciglio al plinto della base della colonna, una pedata di
m. 1,02, la quale si unisce nel vuoto degli archi col pavimento del
portico.
Consta l’edificio di quattro piani. I primi tre sono arcuati ed ornati con
colonne di mezzo rilievo, d’ordine rispettivamente Dorico, Jonico e
Corintio; il quarto piano non ha archi, ma finestre rettangolari; ed
anzichè da colonne, come i tre sottoposti, è decorato da pilastri con
capitelli Corintî: il che, secondo alcuni architetti, meglio asseconda
l’occhio in tanta altezza.
Nei due primi piani le colonne sporgono dai pilastri degli archi per
due terzi del diametro, e nel terzo piano per la sola metà. Esse
hanno tutte egual diametro, e di eguale larghezza sono eziandio i
pilastri dell’ultimo piano.
L’ordine del piano terreno è un Dorico non legittimo: non ha triglifi nel
fregio; il capitello in luogo dei tre listellini ha una gola, ed al fusto
della colonna è sottoposta una base, di un carattere differente dalle
quattro consuete. L’altezza di quest’ordine è di m. 10,50: gli archi
hanno m. 4,30 di larghezza e m. 7,10 di altezza.
L’ordine del secondo piano è Jonico, ed è alto (compreso il
piedistallo) m. 11,85. La colonna ha la base attica. Gli archi hanno
m. 4,30 di larghezza e m. 6,50 di altezza. Essendo il pavimento del
portico di questo piano a livello della cimasa del piedistallo della
colonna, vi si dovette fare un parapetto dell’altezza di un metro.
L’ordine del terzo piano è Corintio, ed è alto (compreso il piedistallo)
m. 11,60. La base della colonna è toscana: nella cornice di
quest’ordine è da notarsi che essa non ha gocciolatoio, ma i
modiglioni reggono immediatamente il listello sottoposto alla gola
finale. Gli archi sono larghi m. 4,30 ed alti m. 6,40. Anche qui, come
nel sottoposto piano, v’è, per la stessa ragione, un parapetto alto un
metro.
I pilastri del quarto piano sono Corintî, hanno la base attica, e tutto
l’ordine, compreso il piedistallo ed un dado che è sottoposto alla
base, è alto m. 13,90. Il cornicione di quest’ultimo ordine è classico,
perchè (mentre mantiene le altezze dell’architrave, del fregio e della
cornice proporzionate al pilastro), per l’introduzione di robuste
mensole nel fregio e per la semplificazione della cornice (che,
decorata a guisa di architrave da tre fasce ed una cimasa, forma nel
suo assieme, senza esser pesante, un grandioso gocciolatoio),
corona stupendamente l’intiera mole.
Questo piano, come già si disse, invece di archi ha finestre
rettangolari, le quali sono di due dimensioni, e si trovano disposte
negli intervalli fra i pilastri alternativamente. Le maggiori si trovano
nella parte superiore; hanno una dimensione di m. 1,72 × 2,57; le
minori di m. 1,30 × 0,90, e trovansi nel dado del basamento.
Il Maffei [207] parlando dell’ordine di questo piano, dice che, essendo
il fregio ornato da modiglioni, questi, nonostante che i capitelli dei
pilastri siano Corintî, fanno divenire l’ordine Romano o Composito.
Anche il Serlio chiama quest’ordine così, ma non a ragione; giacchè
la caratteristica principale di un ordine architettonico è il capitello: e
bene a proposito il Desgodetz scrisse: «La somiglianza che hanno
gli ordini affini, come sono il Romano ed il Corintio, il Dorico ed il
Toscano, e qualche licenza che l’architetto si prenda, non deve farli
confondere fra loro».
Il nostro edificio non ha intagli, e giustamente; perchè, a parer mio,
l’intagliar foglie, volute e cornici che doveano essere collocate a
tanta altezza ed in fabbrica cotanto gigantesca, sarebbe stato, più
che superfluo, sconvenevole; come, viceversa, sarebbe
sconvenevole non decorar con intagli ordini destinati a decorar una
sala.
D’altronde l’esecuzione dell’edificio in genere, e dei particolari in
ispecie, è trascurata assai. Una trascuratezza siffatta, per non aver
riscontro nelle fabbriche contemporanee, ci attesta la fretta con cui
fu eseguita la grandiosa opera dell’Anfiteatro Flavio.
In ciascuno dei tre piani arcuati v’erano 80 fornici: quelli del piano
terreno erano numerati, ad eccezione di quei quattro che si
trovavano all’estremità dell’asse maggiore e minore, dei quali i primi
due erano i grandi ingressi all’arena, e i due secondi gli ingressi
imperatorî; sicchè ogni quadrante della periferia conteneva 19 fornici
intieri e due dimezzati.
Gli archi caduti sono 47; i superstiti 33, portanti dalla parte esterna
incisi al di sopra degli archivolti, i seguenti numeri:

XXIII XXIIII XXV xxvi XXVII XXVIII XXVIIII XXX XXXI

XXXII XXXIII XXXIIII XXXV XXXVI XXXVII XXXVIII (segue
un arco non numerato, all’estremità orientale dell’asse
 minore) XXXVIIII XL XLI XLII XLIII XLIIII XLV XLVI XLVII
.... XLVIIII ... L LI LII LIII LIIII.
(C. I, l. VI, Parte 4, 32263).

I numeri servivano indubbiamente ad indicare a coloro che doveano

assistere agli spettacoli, qual fosse l’ingresso a loro più comodo per
portarsi al sito della scalinata assegnato alla rispettiva condizione
sociale. L’Agostini, nel quarto dei suoi dialoghi sulle medaglie,
osservò che ad ogni quattro archi corrispondeva una scalinata
interiore, la quale sboccava ad un vomitorio, ossia uscita alla grande
scalinata della cavea: e che anche sugli archi di questi vomitorî
erano scolpiti numeri onde evitare confusione.
Il numero I trovavasi a destra di chi guarda l’Anfiteatro dalla parte del
Celio; il numero LXXVI a sinistra. Al lato opposto, l’arco senza
numero lo vediamo fra i numeri XXXVIII e XXXVIIII; e questo fornice
si fa rimarcare non solo per la mancanza del numero, ma pure per le
tracce di una speciale decorazione. Non lungi da esso si rinvennero,
e si veggon tuttora, due pezzi di colonna di marmo frigio e residui di
trabeazione di marmo bianco. I gradini che circondano esternamente
l’Anfiteatro, sono in quel punto interrotti, ed i massi di travertino
formano, nella parte centrale dell’arco, un rientramento. Il Marangoni
pensa che gli archi senza numero fossero destinati all’ingresso degli
Imperatori, della loro corte e di tutti coloro che doveano sedere al
podio. Ciò troverebbe una conferma, dice, nel fatto che, passati i due
portici, e dove principiano gli archi che sostenevano le gradinate
verso l’arena, v’ha come una spaziosa sala, illuminata da qualche
apertura corrispondente alla gradinata stessa. Quest’ambiente
vedesi adornato con lavori e figure di stucco, le quali, benchè
danneggiate dall’aria e dal tempo, appariscono di squisito
lavoro [208]. E poichè sull’arco mancante di numero manca eziandio
l’intera cornice, sino al piano dell’ordine superiore; si può pensare
che esso fosse adornato da qualche gruppo o bassorilievo od anche
con iscrizioni [209].
Il Nibby [210] ed altri argomentano dalle medaglie che «dinanzi al
parapetto di ciascun arco vi dovea essere esteriormente un
piedestallo con una statua pedestre: fatto, aggiunge egli, confermato
dagli ultimi scavi, e che apparisce da qualche traccia superstite». Io
stesso ho veduto coi miei occhi queste tracce patentissime, e
specialmente le ho osservate nel parapetto che trovasi nel fornice
del terzo piano e sopra l’arco che porta il numero XXXIII, ove rimane
il posto già occupato dal piedistallo; ed ho osservato l’interruzione
della cornice che serve di finimento al parapetto stesso, perchè
coperto dalla parte posteriore del piedistallo (V. Fig. 2).
Il Guazzesi [211] opina che le statue che si veggono incise nelle
medaglie ornassero effettivamente l’Anfiteatro Flavio; ma dice che
esse non furono stabili e di marmo, bensì d’altra materia e mobili, da
esporsi in mezzo agli archi giusta le circostanze e qualità degli
spettacoli da rappresentarsi nel nostro Anfiteatro. E basa la sua
opinione sul fatto (?) del non trovarsi nel mezzo di essi archi alcun
segno o vestigio di base o di piedistalli, che rivelino la cessata
esistenza di statue stabili e di marmo.
Si vede che il Guazzesi esaminò molto superficialmente l’edificio!
In ogni modo, le statue fossero o mobili od immobili, di marmo o di
gesso, di terracotta o lignee; se non vogliamo negar fede alle
medaglie ed ai fatti, l’Anfiteatro Flavio fu indiscutibilmente decorato
con statue. «Gli archi aperti del secondo e terzo piano, dice il ch. H.
Grisar [212] erano nell’ampio giro animati di statue di marmo e di
bronzo».
Ciascuno dei tre ordini arcuati, come ho detto poc’anzi, consta di 80
fornici; le finestre maggiori però del 4º piano non sono che 40,
perchè s’alternano in modo che per ogni due archi v’è una finestra.
— Esaminando le medaglie, vediamo che in ogni spazio libero, tra
un finestrone e l’altro, vi fu scolpito un disco. Sarà stato questo un
capriccio dello scultore, o veramente in quegli spazî vi fu qualche
cosa? Vediamolo.
Alcuni archeologi, tra i quali il Nibby [213], ritennero che i clipei dei
quali ci parla il cronografo dell’anno 334 [214], non furono altro che
quegli ornamenti rotondi che sormontavano la cornice dell’Anfiteatro,
formando una specie di merlatura. Rispetto il parere di tali scrittori;
ma siccome quella specie di merlatura che si vede accennata nelle
medaglie, io dubito non sia altro che la serie delle grossi travi del
velario, rivestite probabilmente di bronzo e coronate alla testata da
un ornamento finale, così ho voluto intraprendere uno studio
speciale intorno a questo punto. Ecco il risultato delle mie ricerche.
Per clypeus, clypeum e clupeus tutti gli scrittori antichi, in relazione
ad edificî, han voluto sempre significare quello scudo rotondo, per lo
più di bronzo, coll’effigie scolpita od a rilievo, di una divinità o di un
eroe o di qualche personaggio illustre [215]: scudo che si soleva
collocare sulle pareti esterne dei tempî [216], ed in luoghi
pubblici [217].
Ora, dicendoci il cronografo suddetto che Domiziano portò
l’Anfiteatro usque ad clypea, non potremmo noi congetturare che i
clipei non fossero quegli ornamenti rotondi che sormontavano la
cornice dell’Anfiteatro, ma bensì veri scudi di bronzo, i quali, come si
rileva dalle medaglie, sfolgoravano fra i pilastri esterni del quarto
piano? [218].
Il Maffei [219], non potendo non prestar fede alle medaglie, dovè
conchiudere: «nel quarto piano del Coliseo veggiam finestre
quadrate alternatamente, nelle medaglie veggiamo gli spazî
intermedî, non nudi come son nella fabbrica, ma occupati da certi
tondi, che paion clipei, ed altro non possono rappresentare, che
ornamenti posticci (?), quali si ponessero e levassero». Osservando
il monumento, m’avvidi che nel mezzo degli spazî che si alternano
colle grandi finestre del quarto ordine dell’Anfiteatro, vi sono dei fori,
nei quali evidentemente furono fissati i perni degli scudi stessi.
Questi fori da me veduti, e da non confondersi con quei buchi fatti,
come vedremo, ne’ bassi tempi per estrarre i perni metallici, li
troviamo negli spazî superstiti che sono a piombo degli archi portanti
i numeri: XIII XXV XXXI XXXIII XXXV XXXX XLII XLVIII L (Vedi Fig.
2).
L’ordine con cui furono fatti questi fori ci dà chiaramente a vedere la
forma dell’oggetto ad essi raccomandato. Quattro sono disposti in
modo da poter per essi condurre una circonferenza, e due altri si
trovano laterali al più basso, formando con questo una linea
orizzontale.
Pertanto l’oggetto raccomandato a quei fori fu senza dubbio uno
scudo rotondo circondato da una corona di lauro con la tenia di
legamento accappiata nel basso. Da questi fori si può anche dedurre
approssimativamente il diametro del clipeo, perchè due dei quattro
fori pei quali si può condurre una circonferenza si trovano, come gli
spigoli degli stipiti delle finestre maggiori, a piombo del mezzo dei
due spazi interposti fra i tre mensoloni.
Che nell’Anfiteatro Flavio vi siano stati clipei è indiscutibile. Il
cronografo ce lo dice chiaramente: che questi scudi o clipei siano
stati posti fra una finestra e l’altra del quarto ordine, ce lo dimostrano
evidentemente le medaglie e le vestigia che ne rimangono nel
monumento. — Ma chi si rappresentò in quegli scudi? Perchè non li
collocarono in tutti e singoli gli spazi liberi? Perchè procedono e si
alternano in una maniera sì strana?
La risposta a questi quesiti non è certamente facile. Io, nondimeno,
nella IV parte — Questione 2. — di questo scritto presenterò il mio
umile giudizio; e sarei lietissimo se altri potessero dare ai quesiti
proposti soluzione più plausibile.
Negli interpilastri, al piano degli architravi delle finestre, sporgono
dalla parete grandi modiglioni di travertino, aventi ciascuno un
incavo; e, corrispondenti a questi, nella cornice di coronamento, vi
sono altrettanti vani o fori. Allorchè l’Anfiteatro Flavio era ancora
intiero, il numero dei modiglioni ascendeva a 240.
 Fig. 2ª.

Questi servivano a sostenere (ed i vani a contenere) le travi verticali,

fasciate di bronzo, le quali a lor volta sostenevano il velario, perchè
gli spettatori fossero riparati dai cocenti raggi solari [220].
La già citata cronaca dell’Anonimo, pubblicata dall’Eccardo, e le
medaglie ci rivelano, dice il Nibby [221], che la sommità dell’Anfiteatro
era coronata intorno da una specie di merlatura di scudi rotondi, che
l’Anonimo sovrammenzionato chiama clypea. Altri poi disegnano
questi merli a foggia di piramidette sormontate da globi o palle,
ornamento trascurato da molti.
Noi già abbiamo esposto il nostro parere circa il significato della
voce clypeus o clypeum ed abbiamo accennato che quella specie di
merlatura e di piramidette rappresentate nelle medaglie altro non fu
che l’insieme dei finimenti delle antenne che sorreggevano il velario.
Passiamo perciò ad altro.
In tutto il recinto esterno dell’Anfiteatro, ed anche internamente [222],
il materiale usato nella costruzione è il travertino. I massi, come è
proprio dell’opera quadrata, sono commessi senza malta; o al più
come dice il Gori [223], furono assestati con una leggera còlla di
calce, ed erano collegati fra loro con spranghe e perni di ferro, i quali
rimangono tuttora entro alcuni buchetti quadrati, profondi un dito
circa. Tal modo di costruzione è antichissimo; e ce lo dimostra un
passo di Tucidide [224], il quale afferma che nelle grosse mura,
fabbricate per consiglio di Temistocle dagli Ateniesi intorno al Pireo,
non v’era nè ghiaia, nè malta; ma grosse pietre commesse insieme e
tagliate in quadro, le esteriori delle quali erano collegate fra loro con
ferro e piombo. «Arduo dovè essere il lavoro di chi, in età men
rimota, smantellò una parte del Colosseo!» esclama il Fontana.
L’Eschinardi [225] ci assicura d’aver visto grosse spranghe di ferro in
una colonna fra gli archi LII e LIII, e nell’arco XLVIII; e che il 12
Agosto 1689, giorno in cui cadde un arco interno dell’Anfiteatro, vide
fra i materiali molte altre spranghe. Anche il Ficoroni [226] ci narra che
allorquando, nel 1703, a cagione del terremoto, cadde un’ala dello
stesso Anfiteatro, trovò fra i travertini due spranghe, una di metallo
ed una di ferro, le quali commettevano l’una coll’altra pietra.
Eccettuati alcuni rari casi in cui a collegare i massi di pietra quadrata
s’usò il legno, fin da antichissimi tempi s’usò, come si è detto, il
metallo e specialmente il ferro. Vitruvio [227] prescrive che nei
monumenti composti di un nucleo di muratura rivestito di un
paramento di pietra quadrata, questo si colleghi con una
controparete interna di tufi squadrati, per mezzo di spranghe di ferro
e piombo. L’uso di concatenare in questa guisa le antiche fabbriche
fu causa che col tempo nascessero nei monumenti quei tanti buchi
che anche oggi vediamo, e che così orribilmente deturpano eziandio
l’Anfiteatro Flavio. Vi fu chi credè che quello sfregio fosse opera
delle mani dei barbari; altri poi l’attribuirono ai mercanti, i quali
avrebbero fatto quei fori per introdurvi i pali onde sostenere le tende
in occasione di fiere, ecc. [228]. Oggi però nessuno dubita che la
maggior parte di quei fori siano stati praticati collo scopo di estrarre i
perni metallici che stringevano le pietre fra di loro. In ogni parte
dell’Anfiteatro o furono asportate le chiavarde o fu tentato estrarle.
Nell’età di mezzo il ferro addivenne un articolo un po’ raro, e quindi
crebbe di prezzo; l’abbandono, d’altra parte, della città fece sì che i
custodi degli armenti ed i pastori frequentassero quel rione; e questi
poi, chi per povertà, chi per speculazione e chi per passatempo,
intrapresero quella pessima occupazione.
Alcuni opinano che quel latrocinio abbia avuto principio fin dai tempi
di Teodorico [229], giacchè questi riprese aspramente coloro che
rubavano dai muri il metallo ed il piombo. Altri invece, e con più
ragione, sostengono che Cassiodoro non parli dell’Anfiteatro Flavio,
ma bensì delle rovine del teatro di Pompeo e d’altre fabbriche.
Laonde, dicono, presero equivoco Flavio Biondo [230], Lucio
Fauno [231], ed il Martinelli [232], che dissero l’Anfiteatro già in rovina
ai tempi di Teodorico, la cui lettera (sulla quale questi scrittori
fondano la loro opinione) non parla delle rovine dell’Anfiteatro Flavio,
in cui a quell’epoca si rappresentavano ancora i giuochi, ma bensì
delle rovine dell’Anfiteatro di Catania.
Dobbiamo confessare esser cosa ben difficile potere stabilire il
tempo preciso in cui ebbe principio questa deturpazione dei
monumenti. Il Nibby [233] ritiene che quei buchi siano stati fatti ai
tempi in cui i Frangipani abitarono il Colosseo. Il Fea [234] dice,
invece, che, osservando bene la fabbrica del Colosseo, ha notato
che alcuni di quei buchi si dovettero fare in tempi molto remoti,
prima, cioè, che (come vedremo a suo luogo) i Frangipani ne
prendessero possesso: perchè, dice, innanzi tutto è inverosimile che
quei signori, sì ricchi e potenti, abbiano potuto far compire per un vile
guadagno quell’atto vandalico; e neppure è credibile che abbiano
lasciato il Colosseo, in balìa di miserabili guastatori di monumenti, i
quali facevano professione di cercar piombo, ferro e metallo, per
trarne utile colla vendita: e secondariamente, perchè i buchi suddetti
si trovano anche in quei luoghi, su de’ quali i Frangipani fabbricarono
o appoggiarono muri da loro fatti per abitarvi. Altri buchi poi,
soggiunge, furono certamente fatti dopo che quella famiglia lasciò di
possedere l’Anfiteatro Flavio: nell’epoca, cioè, in cui i Papi
trovavansi in Avignone, e dopo la caduta di una gran parte del
portico esteriore. Si vedono infatti buchi praticati nei siti delle rovine,
ove mai si sarebbero potuti fare, se l’edifizio fosse stato nel suo
essere: buchi, che negli stessi luoghi e nella parte conservata non si
osservano davvero; vale a dire, nelle piante dei pilastri che
corrispondono alle vólte rovinate.
È un fatto incontestato che fin dai tempi degli Imperatori, ed anche
prima, vi fosse gente iniqua, che, per capriccio o per far dispetto a
qualcuno, deturpasse i monumenti sepolcrali, e rompesse le statue
poste in pubblico, o le insudiciasse [235]; che vi fossero oziosi e mal
viventi, i quali rubassero i metalli di cui gli edifizî erano esteriormente
adorni, o fracassassero statue di metallo già dedicate o esposte al
pubblico [236], o che mandassero in rovina i sepolcri [237] di coloro i
quali (contravvenendo alle leggi) [238] si facevano tumulare con gioie,
oro, argento e vesti preziose [239].
Stabilitisi gli Imperatori in Costantinopoli, crebbero in Roma le
miserie e gli oziosi; e tosto si sospesero le relazioni commerciali con
quelle nazioni estere, donde s’importavano i metalli. Allora non
mancò chi si dedicasse a raccogliere il piombo, il ferro ed i bronzi
dalle fabbriche fatiscenti, ora con permesso ed ora colla semplice
tolleranza dei magistrati. Ammiano Marcellino [240] ce lo dice
chiaramente, allorquando ci riferisce che dovendo Lampadio [241],
per suo ufficio, restaurare varie fabbriche, ed ergerne delle nuove,
inviava apparitori in traccia dei raccoglitori dei metalli, sotto il
pretesto di comprarli; e che gli inviati, trovatili, li toglievan loro senza
pagamento, correndo in tal guisa serio rischio d’essere uccisi dai
defraudati. Dal codice Teodosiano [242] poi apprendiamo che non
solo i privati, ma pur anche i Prefetti ed altri Magistrati, o per avarizia
o per risparmio, tolsero gli ornamenti metallici dagli antichi
monumenti, sebbene fossero in bonissimo stato. La legge contro
questo abuso fu emanata dagli imperatori Arcadio ed Onorio
nell’anno 398. In seguito i barbari, non paghi di spogliare Roma del
suo oro, del suo argento e di qualsiasi opera artistica di metallo,
giunsero perfino a tormentare il suo popolo, onde obbligarlo a
manifestare i supposti tesori [243]. Allora crebbe più che mai il
bisogno dei metalli, e principalmente del bronzo, e la mania di
estrarlo dai pubblici monumenti. Teodorico permise, o piuttosto
confermò l’uso di appropriarsi qualunque pezzo di metallo che fosse
caduto dagli edifizî, vietando, in pari tempo, di toglierlo da
monumenti, se ancora trovavasi al posto per ornamento [244].
Malgrado queste disposizioni, la strage del bronzo e del piombo
cresceva smisuratamente: i metalli si toglievano dovunque si
trovavano; e di notte si rompevano anche le statue che ancora in
gran numero ornavano la città. Fu allora che Teodorico si vide nella
necessità di deputare un magistrato, detto Comitiva Romana [245], al
quale diede l’incombenza speciale d’invigilare sopra coloro che
approfittavano delle tenebre notturne onde perpetrare più
impunemente quel vandalismo.
Nelle calamità sopravvenute a Roma sul cadere del secolo VI, e
nella quasi totale indipendenza dai magistrati, dagli Imperatori e dai
Sommi Pontefici, della quale cominciavano a godere i suoi cittadini,
accrebbe la noncuranza dei monumenti; e le statue ed altri lavori
artistici, che erano sfuggiti alla rapacità dell’Imperatore Costantino
III, perirono quasi tutti prima del secolo X. Secoli di miseria
universale, di barbarie nelle arti, nelle lettere e nei costumi; secoli, in
cui la metropoli del mondo ad altro non pensava che a consumare e
a divorare se stessa! — A quei disgraziati secoli perciò, a mio
parere, dobbiamo riportare la maggior parte di quei buchi che sì
orribilmente deturpano l’Anfiteatro Flavio.
Nell’arco di Susa [246] s’osservano varî fori, simili a quelli fatti nel
nostro Anfiteatro. Ecco quanto a questo proposito scrive il
Maffei: [247] «Richiesto, quando fui sul luogo, che significassero (quei
buchi dell’arco), feci osservare come i buchi soprastanno sempre al
congiungimento di due pietre, e non si veggono oltre ad una certa
altezza. Ma perchè ognuno si rendea difficile a crederlo, mandato in
cerca di scalpelli, e fatto fare un simil buco in sito non ancor tocco,
apparve la chiave, qual levata, e portata meco conservo fra le cose
antiche da me raccolte. Il ferro, così perchè più tenacemente
legasse, come perchè fosse da ruggine difeso, è tutto circonvestito
di piombo, onde appare il riscontro e la verità dei passi di Tucidide e
di Vitruvio» [248].
Ma non tutti i buchi che s’osservano nelle pareti dell’Anfiteatro
Flavio, furono fatti allo scopo di asportarne i perni metallici.
Esaminando infatti la forma, il luogo e la disposizione simmetrica di
alcuni di essi, si scorge ad evidenza, dice il Fea [249], che furono fatti
per appoggiarvi legni, onde sbarrare le arcate, o per difendersi,
come era solito farsi in tempi di guerre civili, in cui si sbarravano
anche le case e le strade per combattervi [250]; o per farvi divisioni di
camere, o per uso di qualche arte; e alcuni forse per uso antico di
giuochi, in occasione di essi: come può congetturarsi da altri simili
nell’Anfiteatro di Pola, che non può dirsi mai stato abitato nei bassi
tempi, come il Colosseo.

Osservando attentamente il profilo o sezione delle pareti esterne

dell’Anfiteatro Flavio, si vedrà che la grossezza di esse pareti
diminuisce gradatamente verso l’interno, in guisa che il basamento
del piedistallo delle colonne del secondo piano cade a piombo del
diametro superiore delle colonne del primo piano; e così via
dicendo [251]. Questo non lo riscontriamo nell’anfiteatro di Verona. Il
Serlio dice, e con ragione, che il ritrarsi delle pareti verso l’interno dà
maggior fortezza all’edificio.
Al Palladio piaceva opinare che i muri diminuissero piramidalmente
dall’una e dall’altra parte; ma dato che da una sola parte le pareti
dovessero diminuire, questa dovea essere l’esterna, giacchè
l’interna era resa solida dalle travature. E questa è forse la ragione
per cui tuttora rimane una buona parte dei portici esterni del nostro
Anfiteatro, mentre del Veronese rimane sì poca cosa!
Quanto alla tinta di color di calcina, la quale sembra passata su molti
travertini, essa è un effetto del vento freddissimo di tramontana
dominante nell’inverno in Roma [252].
L’aspetto esterno del monumento, benchè deformato dalle ingiurie
degli uomini e degli elementi, è imponentissimo. Basta vederlo, per
non dimenticarlo mai più. La sveltezza di una mole così colossale è
dovuta alla sua forma curvilinea, che sfugge ed inganna l’occhio, e
sorprende lo spettatore. Il pittoresco che v’ha insensibilmente
introdotto il tempo colla sua opera di distruzione, l’ha reso sì vago ed
interessante, che molti giunsero a non desiderare la riedificazione
della parte diruta.
Ma già è tempo di descrivere la parte interna del nostro Anfiteatro. .
 CAPITOLO TERZO.
Descrizione dell’interno dell’Anfiteatro Flavio — Arena —
Ipogei — Portici sotterranei — Cavea — Velario —
Anemoscopio — Architetto.

L’arena dell’Anfiteatro Flavio era lunga metri 79 e larga 46.

Non tutto lo spazio dell’arena era libero ai giuochi, ma attorno al
podio girava un’area, larga quanto l’altezza di questo toglieva di
visuale agli spettatori. Nell’anfiteatro di Pozzuoli questa zona è larga
m. 1,12 circa, ed è limitata da un solco, nel quale vi sono due fori a
distanza uguale, che trapassano la vôlta dell’ipogeo. Lo Scherillo
opina che in questi fori stessero fissate le aste verticali che
sostenevano la rete di bronzo. Nel nostro Anfiteatro questa zona
(diremo morta) sarebbe stata proporzionalmente larga m. 2,50 circa:
ed appunto a questa distanza dal muro del podio vediamo ricorrere
nell’ipogeo una serie di pilastri di massi tufacei, disposti
regolarmente attorno attorno e a distanze uguali; ai quali massi
furono verosimilmente raccomandate le travi della grande rete, fin da
quando (dopo il regno di Domiziano) fu modificata l’arena [253]. Io
congetturo che precisamente in quest’epoca, a fine di dare un po’ di
luce all’ipogeo (il quale ne avea certamente bisogno), si lasciassero
delle aperture munite d’inferriate nel pavimento della zona
morta [254].
Per comodità dei combattenti il suolo si ricopriva con strati di arena
comune, donde quell’area si ebbe il nome di arena [255]. Si fe’ pur
uso di polveri di vario colore, ma ciò potè accadere soltanto in
occasione di solenni rappresentazioni. Plinio [256] ci dice che nel
Circo Massimo s’adoperò a tal uso la raschiatura di pietra specolare.
Caligola e Nerone, in occasione di giuochi straordinarî, vi sparsero il