[JumpCrisscross]

> the vigiles was that they were under the direct command of centurions, despite being largely slaves, and were organized into barracks

I've had difficulty determining if these were military centurions, or a broader use of the term.

Also realised: it’s uniquely difficult to draw a civil-military distinction in ancient Rome given how they thought about leadership--a good politician was a good general and vice versa. Within that context, given they were a mix of slaves and freedmen, had short life expectancies and were lightly armed [1], arguing they were more military than civil is like saying our police are military on the sole basis of being commanded by seargeants.

> must not accept that the police as they exist today are the only way policing can be done

Agree. A lot of things we administer today, on the other hand, were never publicly administered. Like mental health.

[1] https://novelsofcolinhough.wordpress.com/2021/03/27/the-vigi...

[yareal]

Fair enough. Of all the historical policing systems, the vigiles seem to be more similar to modern police forces than other systems.

I still think the vigiles are probably notably quite different from police - operating mostly at night, being able to move directly into the military, sleeping in a barracks. Much of the policing during the day was carried out by cohortes urbanae, which definitely were military units.

But they were an organized firefighting and policing force (and I haven't been able to find information on whether they were uniformed). I can see the resemblance, but they also existed in Rome for 300 years then disappeared.

[lolinder]

> and I haven't been able to find information on whether they were uniformed

Why the obsession with the uniform? If the institution we have today was suddenly replaced with one that had all the same powers but no uniform, would that be a substantially different institution?

It feels like you included it in the definition mostly in order to more effectively exclude all pre-modern police forces.

[yareal]

Because it was a defining reason for their creation. Uniforms in policing represented a change in public thinking about crime prevention vs crime reaction. It marked the moment in time when the modern police force was effectively born.

Before that, we did have police, but they were different in meaningful ways. Such forces were largely concerned with dealing with crime post facto, and were not always considered particularly professional. The uniforms were a fundamental shift in the theory of policing.