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[German version] Seven bronze tablets, found in 1444 in Iguvium (modern Gubbio), between 87 cm × 57 cm and 40 cm × 28 cm in size, some written on one side, some on both. The earlier ones are in a local right-to-left alphabet, borrowed from Etruscan, and the later ones in Roman letters, but all are in the Umbrian language. Their origin is from the beginning of the 2nd cent. BC to the beginning of the 1st, and they represent the sacred archive of a priesthood, the Fratres Atiedii (cf. the Arvales Fratres in Rome), in which details of sacrifices by the priesthood fo…

[German version] (sc. pars). The quadragesima (τεσσαρακοστή/ tessarakostḗ, 'one fortieth') was a toll at the rate of 21/2% of the declared value of traded goods levied at the Roman imperial frontier or at customs frontiers within the empire. The term denotes, in particular, the import and export duties in the customs regions of Asia, Gaul and Hispania, but from a relatively early date, quadragesima could be used to refer simply to any toll(Quint. Decl. 359). While the customs region in Asia probably comprised only that province (ILS 1330; quadragesima portuum Asiae: ILS 1862), the Ga…

[German version] Edict of the consuls Q. Marcius [I 17] Philippus and Sp. Postumius [I 8] Albinus, on the basis of a Senate ruling ( senatus consultum ) of 7 October 186 BC, ordering the suppression of the Bacchanalia in Rome and Italy (ll. 2 f.). The sole surviving copy of the edict, found at Tiriolo (province of Catanzaro) in 1640, is directed towards the authories in the Bruttian ager Teuranus (ll. 30), and orders official announcements to be made on at least three market days (l. 22 f.). The bronze tablet, measuring 27 x 28 cm and contained in a Baroque frame…

[German version] (Oscan medìss). Oscan ( Osci) and Volscian ( Volsci) term for an official (Fest. 123), which is etymologically equivalent to the Latin iudex. If the term refers to the supreme magistrate of a touta, an ‘(entire) people’, occasionally (for example, among the Campanians, Liv. 24,19,2) tuticus is added (analogous to magistratus populi or publicus). In Ennius [1] (Enn. Ann. 298) there is an alter meddix in addition to the summus meddix (= m. tuticus), possibly the meddix of a pagus as well. There also seem to have been other meddices whose particular responsibilities were…

[German version] Fragments of a bronze tablet, inscribed on both sides, from Bantia (at modern Venosa) in Lucania. The front, written first, contains the sanctio of a Roman statute. Since present and future magistrates are bound in it by oath to refrain from any undertaking against the law, it is often seen as part of a l ex Appuleia ( agraria or maiestatis; Ap(p)uleius [I 11]) of 103 or 100 BC; in any case, it is from the end of the 2nd cent. BC. Listed on the back, used later, are several sections of the municipal law of Bantia (or a draft of it), in the…

[German version] Municipal law from the time of Domitian (end of the 1st cent. AD) for the Latin municipium Flavium Malacitanum, modern Málaga in southern Spain, of which a bronze tablet was found in 1861 with chs. 51-69 together with the lex Salpensana (today in the Archaeological National Museum of Madrid). The text of chs. 59-69 is identical, with several differences, to that of the corresponding chs. in the lex Irnitana ; this would probably also apply to the rest of the law. Galsterer, Hartmut (Bonn) Bibliography CIL II 1964 ILS 6089 H. Freis, Histor. Inschr. zur röm. Kaiserzeit, 1…

[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…