[German version]

(from Latin provocare, 'to call forth, to summon'). Provocatio denoted the right of each Roman citizen to summon the people to oppose the magisterial power of enforcement ( coercitio ) when it threatened life or limb (provocatio ad populum). Provocatio was regarded in the Roman Republic as a bastion of civic freedom (Cic. De or. 2,199). Used as a political tool against the licence of the holders of the patrician imperium (consul, praetor) in the struggle of the orders, the provocatio gained legal sanction with the lex Valeria of 300 BC. It was probably intended to tr…