Search

…

[German version] [1] (Religion) see Bible; Christianity; New Testament Apocrypha; Septuagint; Testamentary literature; Vulgate (Religion) see Bible; Christianity; New Testament Apocrypha; Septuagint; Testamentary literature; Vulgate Hengstl, Joachim (Marburg/Lahn)…

[German version] (Burning at the stake) was a form of Roman capital punishment. The execution may originally have been left to the injured party and his agnates (  agnatio ) in a kind of ‘channelled’ private revenge. In that case, the criminal proceedings served only to establish the prosecutor's right to carry out the private punishment. This is probably how we should understand Gaius' report in his comm. on the Twelve Tables (Dig. 47,9,9), which states that this law (pl. 8,10) ordered execution by fire for premeditated arsons: igni necari iubetur (interpretation according to [1], but critical thereof [2; 3]). The imposition of crematio corresponded with the principle of talion (  talio ) in that it aimed at a mirror effect between punishment and crime. In later times, crematio is imposed for other crimes as well, as a ‘public punishment’. It was imposed for high treason in the republic (Liv. 3,53; Val. Max. 6,3,2) and in the principate, then probably for crimes against the crown as well ( crimen laesae maiestatis…

[German version] (also gesta). Generally an expression for transactions relevant to business (not necessarily legal transactions). In Roman civil law the following are significant: (1) the pro herede gestio (behaviour as an heir), informal behaviour (e.g. taking possession) as an expression of the desire to come into an inheritance ( Succession, law of). (2) the negotiorum gestio (modern law: conducting business without a commission). In Roman law it concerns all affairs in the conduct of someone else's transactions that are not commissioned (  mandatum ) or result of guardianship (  tutela ). This includes the exercise of the authority of the private curator (e.g. over the mentally ill,   furor ) as well as the socially dependent property adm…

[German version] The abolitio, which has come down to us in the Digest title 48,16, is in Roman law discontinuation of criminal proceedings, often with the effect of a pardon (  indulgentia ), but mainly with the possibility of renewing the charge, as with the abolitio publica, ordered by the Senate or in exceptional cases by the emperor, and the abolitio privata, pronounced by the judge at the request of a private prosecutor. The …

[German version] In contrast to the  land register that existed ─ probably based on an Old Egyptian model [1] ─ in Ptolemaic and Roman Egypt (and, in antiquity, possibly only there) as a safeguard for private property transactions, the primary purpose of estate registers (ER) and similar registers was the levy of land taxes as well as the administration of state leases. Thus, almost inevitably, they were just as widespread as those very forms of state income. A prerequisite for starting up archives or books with records of the size and location of properties is a knowledge of surveying techniques and the availability of a profession of  surveyors. However, we lack a direct transmis…

[German version] A. Public criminal prosecution The legal technical category in classical Roman jurisprudence of the Principate applied to public criminal procedures ( iudicium publicum) where crimes were prosecuted based upon accusation (  accusatio ). …

[German version] In Roman law, the actus contrarius ('reversion') of the mancipatio (formal alienation). It served, for instance, for the return of objects given for fiduciary safekeeping ( fiducia ). The remancipatio was also a constituent act in the complex ceremonies of the emancipatio (release from the family group). Above all, however, it was an important element in divorce proceedings in the old manus marriage (cf. also Marriage III): if such a marriage was to be dissolved, the wife had to be released from the special authority of the husband. This remancipatio consisted of a ce…

[German version] The hangman, who in Roman society as in virtually every place and time fulfilled a despised function, to be performed beyond the pale of civic life. Execution of  capital punishment by the carnifices was supervised under the Roman Republic by the   tresviri capitales . Wheth…

[German version] In the Roman legal procedure of legis actio sacramento in rem ('legal assertion of claim'): the staff that was symbolically applied to the slave or item of property in order to give concrete expression to the plaintiff’s claim and the defendant’s counterclaim to the item. The etymology of …

[German version] The unmarried state ( caelibatus) was a significant object of social evaluation and legal regulation in Rome. In the Republican period, perhaps following early precursors as early as 403 BC (Val. Max. 2,9,1), the censor (102, not 131 BC) Q. Caecilius Metellus Numidicus spoke out against the unmarried state and childlessness in a speech to the people (Gell. NA 1,6). Augustus took this up, expressly to justify the lex Iulia de maritandis ordinibus, in the first main piece of his legislation relating to marriage (18 BC) (Liv. 59). This law made it obliga…

[German version] …

[German version] (the 'reply letter') is one of the most important sources for Roman imperial law. In Gai. Inst. 1,5, the rescriptum is simply called epistula ('letter'), but classed as belonging to the constitutiones ('imperial laws'). Already in the Principate, the emperor received queries and proposals from officials and private persons on every matter imaginable. The emperor replied commensurate with the preparation in the chancellery ab epistulis with a rescriptum, a draft of which was archived. Starting with Hadrian (beginning of the 2nd cent. AD), the rescripta more and mo…

[German version] Roman term for the procedure of allowing one of several litigants in a private case (  …

[German version] The technical term in Roman law for ‘jettison’, the unloading of goods at sea from a ship in distress. The so-called lex Rhodia de iactu held that in these cases a community of endangerment of all involved existed: between the damaged party, the mariner ( nauta) and the owners of the salvaged load. In fact, this lex was a customa…

[German version] Handing an object to someone for use free of charge probably occurs in all societies every day. Legal conflicts hardly ever result from it. Many legal systems therefore manage without special regulations for these circumstances. It was probably generally the same in antiquity. Roman law, however, equally contains two institutions for the social phenomenon of the loan: the precarium (loan at request) and the commodatum, a binding contract by which the lender is obligated to hand over the object until the end of its usage or until the expiry of …

[German version] A. Libellus in civ…

[German version] (also known as liberi naturales ). In Late Antiquity, ‘natural children’ were the issue of an illegitimate union ( concubinatus ). Compared to other children of illegitimate descent ( spurius ), they were privileged in many respects. Thus, the possibility of a legitimation, that is the eventual acquisition of the legal status of legitimate offspring ( legitimi), existed only for NL. In what was probably initially intended as an incentive to contract marriage with one's partner in concubinage, the parents' marriage brought about the full status of legitimate offspring for NL from the time of Constantine the Great [1]. (Legitimation through subsequent ma…

Joint ownership of an object in Roman law. [German version] A. Past history The most important circumstances that led to the formation of a communio entailed a community of purchasers ( societas quaestus) or a community of heirs. Regarding both, the communio did not gain acceptance until late, towards the end of the Republic. Before that, multiple heirs were joined in a community of ercto non cito (after erctum ciere: to make a division), as we know from the papyrus find of 1933, containing Gaius, Institutiones 3, 154a, b. It originally meant a community of p…

[German version] The poll-tax of the late Roman Imperial Age from Diocletian (AD 297). As capitatio plebeia, it was probably levied on the urban population. With regard to the taxation of the rural population, it is disputed whether the capitatio was raised independently or was -- as an indicator of income -- only an important unit in the calculation of the land-tax ( iugatio). Widows and orphans, soldiers and veterans were entirely or partly exempted from the …