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[German version] Populus Romanus Quirites (or, later, Quiritium) was the official term for the Roman citizenry. It contains the name of the city ( Romanus) and that of the populus ( Quirites), as with Ardea ( Ardeates Rutuli) and Lavinium ( Laurentes Lavinates), where the name of the city stood alongside that of the people living there. The singular form, Quiris, survives only in archaic formulae (Fest. 304: ollus Quiris). The etymological derivation of the term is still disputed. The Romans themselves wished to separate Quirites neither from the god Quirinus nor the Quirinal Hil…

[German version] A bronze plaque in the Capitoline Museum in Rome contains the end of the lex de imperio Vespasiani, the so-called enabling law for Vespasianus, with which the Senate decreed at the end of AD 69 - after the death of Vitellius - to Vespasian cuncta principibus solita (‘all that is usual for emperors’, Tac. Hist. 4,3,3), and which was put before the comitia at the beginning of 70 [1. 104f.]. The inscription (from the Lateran?), which no-one could read at the time because of its classical capital letters, served Cola di Rienzo in 1347 for the foundation…

[German version] I. Ancient Orient In the field of  legal texts in cuneiform, the political structure of the Mesopotamian confederation, that at times comprised small territorial states and at times large states stretching over the whole of southern Mesopotamia, created regional peculiarities that are demonstrated above all in the form of documents as well as in substantive law. The essential parameters of the legal system were defined by the structure of the society (Social structure), economy and f…

[German version] Alliance entered into with the Latins after the victory over them at the Lacus Regillus in 493 BC by the consul Sp.  Cassius [I 19] Vecellinus, which was extended to the Hernici in 486. The document was still preserved at the time of Cicero on a bronze column (the original?) in the Forum (Cic. Balb. 53). The historicity of the text is acknowledged today, as is the early dating, contrary to earlier research [1. 68f.; 2. 299-301]. The main conditions are found in Dion. Hal. Ant. Rom. 6,95: peace …

[German version] A collegium of eight municipal officials (Municipium) in cities of eastern Central Italy: Amiternum, Nursia, Trebula Mutuesca, Interamnia Praetuttianorum and Plestia. From the end of the Republic, when octoviri are first documented epigraphically, for the most part the office broke down into individual groups. In Trebula Mutuesca, for instance, there were two VIIIviri duovirali potestate, VIIIviri aedilicia potestate, VIIIviri aerarii and VIIIviri fanorum each (CIL IX 4883, 4891, 4896). It is clear that the six-official scheme then usual in …

[German version] (Herakleiensis). Bronze tablet (1·84 m × 0·38 m), broken into two parts, found in the area of ancient Heraclea [10] in Lucania. On the front sides of both parts, there are late 4th cent. BC regulations for the administration by public authorities of the estates of two temples, one of Dionysus and one of Athena. The end of a 1st cent. BC Latin text is preserved on the back of one of these tablets. Since the expected sanctio is missing, it can not be a law and therefore also not, as formerly presumed (as e.g. [1. 113-120]), a Caesarian l ex Iulia municipalis. The surviving pa…

[German version] The populus in historical times describes the totality of adult, male Roman citizens, i.e. excluding women and children as well as foreigners and slaves. From the late Republic, populus ( Romanus) became a synonym for the res publica ( Romana), the Roman state (Cic. Rep. 1,25,39: est igitur ... res publica res populi), the populus being defined as the amalgamation of a group united in recognition of the law and of common purpose (v. [2. 315-318]). It was thus entirely possible that other populi might exist within the territory of the Roman state (v. Quirites; cf…

[German version] Archive of 53 (45 surviving) wooden tablets written in ink  from southern Numidia (between Capsa and Theveste), named after their publisher, E. Albertini: largely legal documents from the Vandal period (484-496 AD), predominantly sales of plots of land, providing important information on legal culture, language and above all the writing of the period. Galsterer, Hartmut (Bonn) Bibliography E. Albertini, Documents d'époque vandale découverts en Algérie, in: CRAI 1928, 301-303  Id., Actes de vente du Ve siècle trouvés dans la région de Tébessa (Algérie)…

[German version] Collegia made up of five ( quinque) men ( viri) below the magistrate level ( magistratus ); in Rome and Italy, they were frequently called ad hoc to settle public affairs. The only long-term office was the collegium of the quinqueviri cis Tiberim, who served as night watch on behalf of the tresviri [1] capitales and later of the aediles ; this function of the quinqueviri is also attested in Italian municipia . From AD 376, the five senators of the quinquevirale iudicium served as judges in capital charges against senators under the chairmanship of a praefectus urbi . …

Subunit of the Roman population ( populus ), arranged solely on a local basis according to residence from at least the Republican period. [German version] I. Meaning and oldest form Roman etymology already derived tribus from its recollection of tres ( 'three'), the number of the oldest tribus. According to Varro (Ling. 5,55), the Roman territory was at first divided into three parts, and the term tribus derived from the Titi(ens)es, Ramnes and Luceres ( ager Romanus primum divisus in partes tres a quo tribus appellata Titiensium, Ramnium, Lucerum 'the Roman land was first divided i…

[German version] A. Community Civitas is the totality of the cives, just as societas is that of the socii. Its meaning is largely synonymous with   populus , but it was rarely used by the Romans for their own state (instead: populus Romanus) but instead was the official expression for all non-Roman communities, tribes and Greek poleis with republican constitutions. A people of the state is the characteristic of a civis, almost always a defined territory with a certain  autonomy ( suis legibus uti) and mostly an urban centre. Classification was according to the legal basis of the re…

[German version] Sigla, earlier notae, is the Latin name for abbreviations. Since the time of the Greeks, S. for names, titles, places etc. have been found on coins, conditioned by the small space available. In Greek inscriptions, on the other hand, S. are, at least in pre-Roman times,  extraordinarily rare. This is in stark  contrast to their extensive use amongst the Etruscans and above all the Romans, where some types of information - such as first names, tribus, former offices and set phrases fo…

[German version] Funerary inscriptions (FI) (now probably approaching a number of 200,000, cf. [3. 124,1]) emerged in the context of the cult of the dead with the purpose of marking the grave of a specific person so that sacrifices for the dead could be performed at the correct place. Furthermore, they soon took on the function of keeping alive the memory of this person and his achievements. They are located above ground at the burial site, or, in communal graves, on the urn holding the ashes, on the sarcophagus, or on the lid of the loculus (the burial niche). In addition to the inscrip…

[German version] I. Mesopotamia Income needed to finance tasks of state and general social functions (administration, the military, irrigation, prestige buildings, the court, cults, etc.) did not come from an all-embracing system of taxation levied on individuals, transactions or property, but on a general duty of service and labour on the part of subjects. Under the oikos economy (3rd millennium BC), the palace’s income came predominantly from the domestic operation of the institutional economies of temple and palace. In the tribute-based economy da…

( ius Latii). [German version] I. Before the dissolution of the Latin league Because of their common language and culture, Romans and Latins possessed largely identical legal systems. This fact was given precision in the foedus Cassianum . It included commercium and conubium , the right to the spoils in joint wars as well as the right to settle in other states of the Latin federation and to become citizens (basis of the exilium ). This legal status was also granted to newly founded Latin coloniae . Galsterer, Hartmut (Bonn) II. As a legal status in the Imperium Romanum [German version] A. To th…

[German version] Stone inscription, slightly damaged, of the 2nd half of the 6th cent. BC, discovered in 1977 at Satricum (Latium) beneath the Temple of Mater Matuta, which was constructed around 500 BC. The inscription, one of the earliest in the Latin language, is readily legible: - - -iei steterai Popliosio Valesiosio/suodales Mamartei (‘dedicated by the companions of Publius Valerius to Mars’). The incomplete beginning is probably to be read as [med h]ei (‘me here’), the object thus addressing the reader (see [1]; less likely Sal]iei, see [2], or Iun]ei, see [3]). The inscriptio…

[German version] Municipal law from the time of Domitian (end of the 1st cent. AD) for the Latin municipium Flavium Salpensanum, modern Facialcazar near Utrera (province of Seville) in southern Spain, of which a bronze tablet with chs. 21-29 was found together with the lex Malacitana (today in the Archaeological National Museum of Madrid) in 1861. The text is, with some differences, identical to the corresponding chs. in the lex Irnitana . Galsterer, Hartmut (Bonn) Bibliography CIL II 1963 ILS 6088 H. Freis, Histor. Inschr. zur röm. Kaiserzeit, 1984, no. 59 (German translation).

[German version] VI, which denote an object as a votive offering to a deity (or deities) by one or more persons, are among the oldest inscriptions; they may express gratitude for victory in a battle or for a merchant ship that has returned safely home. VI were often made because of a vow taken in a moment of danger, hence the formula VSLM, votum soluit libens merito ('he has honoured the vow of his own free will and according to custom'). The inscription medium was either a stone pedestal (such as for statues) or the dedicated object itself (for instance, helmets or chest ar…

[German version] ('Derivation'). In contrast to the Greek poleis and the independent local communities of pre-Roman Italy, a distinction existed in the Hellenistic kingdoms and thereafter in the Roman Empire between the sense of belonging to the greater political unit and the feeling of membership of the community in which one was born and lived. The former was mostly called politeía in Greek and civitas (B.) in Latin, and for the latter, primarily in Ptolemaic Egypt, the Greek expression ἡ ἰδία <κώμη> ( hē idía <kṓmē>, 'one's own village') was common. In Rome from the Imperial …

[German version] Conciliabulum (from concilium) in the legal meaning is an assembly place or, more often, just the venue ( locus ubi in concilium convenitur, Fest. p. 33) at which citizens gathered for the proclamation of laws, levying etc. The word describes a settlement with elementary self-government in the territory of one of the tribus rusticae. In the context of the ager Romanus we hear of per fora et conciliabula (Liv. 25,22,4; 39,14,7 etc.), which -- as in the lex Poetelia of 358 -- provides an excellent parallel to the nundinae in the city of Rome. In late Republican laws it…