'Vim vi repellere licet': configurabilità, struttura ed evoluzione della difesa reattiva in diritto romano.

In Roman legal history, protective reaction to a violent aggression is defined by the principle 'vim vi repellere licet', while a definition close to the modern ‘self-defense’ is unknown: moving from a ‘naturalistic’ background, therefore, this essay explores the symmetry between attack and response, both connoted by the vis, i.e. the use of force. Having first of all freed the analysis of XII tab. 8.12-13 from the dogmatic stand related to the strong opposition between exempting rule and indictment law, the legislative and jurisprudential sources are investigated, in the light of the progressive inconsistency between 'tuitio' and 'ultio'. The lawful reliance to the 'vim vi repellere' is narrowed, but at the same time its practical boundaries are definied on an objective and subjective level, aiming to identify issues that later became the basis of ‘self- defense’. The right to physical integrity is clearly associated to the protection of assets – including property, in some ways already mentioned in the case of night theft, but also of possession – and the safeguard of shame, while selfless defence takes shape, in favour of one’s relatives as well as, by given legal statement, of slaves towards their masters and of soldiers regarding their superiors.