One morning the body of an ordinary citizen is found in the Forum during the reign of Augustus. Would there be any kind of investigation? What about in Athens during the era of Pericles?

by shallowblue
WelfOnTheShelf

I don't know about Athens, but I answered a similar question a few months ago about your chances of being caught if you murdered someone in Rome - in brief, the Romans felt that murder was an issue between private citizens, and not something for the government to get involved in. There wasn't really a concept of a "state" yet so there was no state to investigate crimes. The murdered person's family would have to bring an accusation against someone specific, then the court could investigate - if the dead person had no family, or if they didn't know who to accuse, there wouldn't be anything to investigate.