Infamia

Did you know that two thousand years ago a Roman citizen could walk across the face of the known world free of the fear of molestation? 

He could walk across the earth unharmed, cloaked only in the words 

"Civis Romanvs Svm" 

"I am a Citizen of Rome."

So great was the retribution of Rome, universally understood as certain, should any harm befall even one of its citizens. 

In other words :

" DIPLOMATIC IMMUNITY...! "

[ SPEAR-THRU-CHEST ]

" ....has just been revoked..! "

Before Hagen and Jack Woltz start talking, Woltz holds a birthday party for a young actress named Janie, and presents her with a pony as a gift. 

Present at the gathering are the girl's mother and several others involved with her current film. 

After Woltz kicks Tom out after dinner, he walks to the exit, looks up, and sees Janie, crying at the top of the staircase, being retrieved by her mother; the implication is that Woltz raped her. 

There is an additional scene of Tom Hagen, Sonny and Vito Corleone discussing the Woltz situation with his vendetta of blocking and blacklisting Johnny Fontane for seducing, stealing and "ruining" one of his studio's most promising Starlets-in-Groiming -"The Best Piece of Ass I've Ever had, and I've had it all over The World."

Vito asks if Woltz is "so tough," to which Tom responds, "You mean is he a Sicilian? Forget about it." 

Don Vito then asks if the story between Woltz and Janie is true, and upon hearing that it is, declares Woltz and his personal behaviour to be "infamia." 

Vito tells Tom to summon Luca Brasi to "see if we can find a way to reason with this Mr. Jack Woltz." 

In ancient Roman culture, infamia (in-, “not,” and fama, “reputation”) was a loss of legal or social standing. As a technical term of Roman law, infamia was an official exclusion from the legal protections enjoyed by a Roman citizen, as imposed by a censor or praetor. 

More generally, especially during the Republic and Principate, infamia was informal damage to one’s esteem or reputation. A person who suffered infamia was an infamis (plural infames).

Infamia was an “inescapable consequence” for certain professionals, including prostitutes and pimps, entertainers such as actors and dancers, and gladiators. 

Infames could not, for instance, provide testimony in a court of law. 

Stripped formally of your reputation, and unable to invoke your family name, noble household or blood lineage, you were rendered to be totally untrustworthy and not held to be reliable - irrespective of how much wealth or ready cash (in the form of Gold) you had to hand.

They were liable to corporal punishment, which was usually reserved for slaves.

You couldn't beat a Roman, even if you were a Roman yourself, and he was one of your peers and social equals/ 

The infamia of entertainers did not exclude them from socializing among the Roman elite, and entertainers who were “stars”, both men and women, sometimes became the lovers of such high-profile figures as the dictator Sulla and Mark Antony.

A passive homosexual who was “outed” might also be subject to social infamia, though if he was a citizen he might retain his legal standing - exactly as happened with Julius Ceasar when Rome was scandalised with the rumour that he had consented to play Bottom-Sub to the appetites of King Mithradates' Top-Dom in the bedroom

The modern Roman Catholic Church has a similar concept of infamy. 

Infamy - They've all got it in