This came to mind when i was reading about Sexuality in Rome and it stated that you cannot enlist in the military if you committed adultery. How would the recruiter know if I committed a crime? Was there a "library" of criminal records and they would look for the name of the person in question? What if I had the same name as a convicted criminal, how do I prove I am not him?
I totally butchered the title. I meant to say "How did they keep track of criminal records in Ancient Rome/Greece?"
As you would expect, it was indeed difficult to keep track of crimes. The ancient justice systems were more interested in corporal punishment and execution than keeping people in prison, thus they would often brand, or tattoo, runaway slaves with the letters 'FVG' (for fugitive) on their foreheads. Prisoners and convicts would receive the same treatment. CAL (calumnia) for liars, FVR (fur) or CF (cave fur - beware thief) for thieves, etc. So that would have been one way of identifying criminals - however this was not a standardised thing and obviously would only have been used in certain cases.
Their justice systems also differed from ours in that cases were brought against people by individuals rather than the state, so there was probably no central database of criminal records. Both prosecution and defense would hire orators, such as Cicero, to write speeches on their behalf, which would then be given before a public jury. These speeches were often published, so in this sense there would have been a record of the crimes, in some cases. We still have the names and crimes of people Cicero wrote speeches against. However, these speeches were published mainly for reasons of style and to show how good a lawyer the author made than to provide a catalogue of people's crimes.
Another thing is that scandal and rumour (fama) were rife, especially in Rome - which was renowned for it, and a bad reputation was something most people feared (virgil gives a fantastic description of it in Aeniad book IV, personified as a monster with thousands of eyes and waggling tongues). Hence if you'd commited a crime and had been caught for it, I imagine word would get around, especially if you were higher up in society.
I hope this answers your question.
I'm not sure any of these directly answer your question, but there are some mentions of Greece and Rome (mostly Rome) in the Crime & Punishment section of the FAQ. They seem to be related more to the investigation and trial aspects of crime and punishment, but you may find them interesting.