Roman punishment was not uniform. It was calibrated to social status in ways so explicit and systematic that the law itself divided humanity into categories that determined not merely the severity of punishment but its entire character. The honestiores — the honorable ones, comprising senators, equestrians, veterans, and local elites — faced one set of penalties for any given crime. The humiliores — the lower orders — faced another, typically harsher, more physically degrading, and more public. This was not a failure of Roman justice to live up to an egalitarian ideal. It was Roman justice operating precisely as designed.