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[English version] Der Sinn des Wortes ae. ist mehrdeutig. Insbes. zum iustum ist der Übergang fließend. Letzteres bezeichnet meist eher die Treue zum positiven Recht, ae. eher die das Ganze des Rechts prägende und durchdringende Gerechtigkeit. Die sprachliche Verwandtschaft mit dem Waagerechten verweist auf die Gleichheit im Sinne der Entsprechung von Leistung und Gegenleistung, Fehlverhalten und Sanktion. Darüber hinaus enthält die ae. den Sinn einer sachgerechten Zuordnung von Sachverhalten als gleich oder ungleich zu den im positiven Recht bereits ents…

[English version] Der p.s., das untergeschobene Kind, spielt in der Gesetzgebung und Rechtswiss. Roms eine erhebliche Rolle, was angesichts der Folgen legitimer Abstammung für Status, Bürgerrecht und Erbrecht leicht zu erklären ist. Bis in die frühe Kaiserzeit (1. Jh.n.Chr.) scheint das Problem der mangelhaften Abstammung freilich familienintern geregelt worden zu sein: Der Vater hatte als Teil seiner väterlichen Gewalt ( patria potestas ) das Recht, ein neugeborenes Kind auszusetzen (Kindesaussetzung). Ob darüber hinaus eine besondere …

[English version] Im röm. Recht der Dieb, der seine Beute durch Einbruch erlangt. Nach Dig. 47,18 begeht er eine Straftat, die als crimen ( publicum) verfolgt wurde. In der Zeit der Republik handelte es sich noch um ein Privatdelikt. Als e. ( carceris) wird auch der Ausbrecher bezeichnet, der gleichfalls im Verfahren der cognitio extra ordinem als Täter eines crimen verfolgt wurde. Schiemann, Gottfried (Tübingen)

[English version] Im Unterschied zum Grundbuch als Register zur Sicherung des privaten Grundstücksverkehrs, das es - wohl nach altägypt. Vorbild [1] - im ptolem. und röm. Ägypten (und in der Ant. möglicherweise nur dort) gegeben hat, dienen K. oder ähnliche Register vornehmlich der Erhebung von Grundsteuern sowie der Verwaltung der Staatspachten und sind daher fast zwangsläufig genauso verbreitet wie diese staatlichen Einnahmen selbst. Voraussetzung für die Anlegung von Archiven oder Büchern mit A…

[English version] (vollständiger: m. viginti quinque annis; Sg.: minor) sind im röm. Recht die unter 25jährigen. In einem engeren (und urspr. technischen) Sinne werden als m. die 15- bis 24jährigen bezeichnet, in einem weiteren Sinne alle, die noch nicht volljährig (im röm. Recht also mindestens 25 Jahre alt) sind. Die gesetzliche Regelung für die m. im engeren Sinne betraf ihre Fähigkeit, Verträge und andere Rechtsgeschäfte vorzunehmen (Geschäftsfähigkeit). Von ihr zu unterscheiden ist die Rechtsfähigkeit, nämlich die Fähigkeit, für sich selbst Re…

[English version] (von nubere, “sich verhüllen, einen Schleier anlegen”) bezeichnet die Heirat in der röm. Gesellschaft (Ehe III.B.). Ein Titel der Digesten ( Digesta , 23,2: De ritu nuptiarum) mit 68 Fr. ist den Hochzeitsbräuchen (III.)) gewidmet. Dies deutet darauf hin, daß die röm. Juristen sich eingehend mit den Voraussetzungen einer rechtmäßig geschlossenen Ehe ( iustum matrimonium ) befaßten. Da es für die rechtliche Anerkennung der Ehe entscheidend auf die Einhaltung der Ehevoraussetzungen z.Z. der n. ankam, wurde n. schließlich synonym mit matrimonium als Ausdruck für…

[English version] Eine Eisenkette, mit der ein Schuldner an den Füßen gefesselt wurde ( ferreum vinculum, quo pedes impediuntur, Fest. 162,1-2). Nach den 12 Tafeln (Lex XII tab. 3,3) durfte der Gläubiger den Schuldner mit Hilfe des n. offenbar in eine Art Beugehaft nehmen, wenn er trotz Verurteilung nicht leistete. Schiemann, Gottfried (Tübingen)

[English version] Vom röm. Juristen Paulus (Dig. 50,16,144) wird als Bed. von p. (auch pelex, pellex, ähnlich der griech. pallakḗ ) die Lebensgefährtin, die nicht verheiratet ist (also nicht uxor, Ehe III.C.), angegeben. Die Rechtsstellung der p. wird im röm. Recht meist beim Konkubinat ( concubinatus ) behandelt. Schiemann, Gottfried (Tübingen)

[English version] “Den Namen (eines Verdächtigen) anzeigen”, ist zunächst nur der allererste Anlaß für eine öffentliche Strafverfolgung in Rom. So kommt der Ausdruck etwa bei Plaut. Aul. 416 im Zusammenhang mit dem Kampf gegen die Unterschicht-Kriminalität durch die tresviri capitales vor. Bei den Verfahren vor diesen Magistraten, einer Art Polizeijustiz, erschöpft sich die Bedeutung der d. n. - ganz im Sinne einer modernen Anzeige - offensichtlich darin, den kriminellen Vorgang überhaupt bekannt zu machen [1. 60, 78]. Nachdem neben die ältere, auf Privatklage beruhende…

[English version] I. Allgemein M. wird in der Ant. vielfach noch nicht von anderen Tötungsdelikten unterschieden. Die bes. Verwerflichkeit oder Gefährlichkeit eines Verhaltens, das zum Tode eines anderen Menschen geführt hat, wird in vielen ant. Rechten noch nicht zum Anlaß einer gerade darauf abstellenden Sanktion genommen. So wäre es für die altoriental. Rechte sowohl begrifflich als auch sachlich unangemessen, von einem bes. Tatbestand des Mordes innerhalb der Tötungsdelikte zu sprechen. Neumann, Hans (Berlin) [English version] II. Griechenland Auch in Griechenland gi…

[English version] ist im röm. Gerichtsverfahren der Gegenbegriff zur “Verurteilung” ( condemnatio ): Im Zivilprozeß endet die Formel, in der die Prätoren das Programm für den iudex niedergelegt haben, stereotyp mit dem Judikationsbefehl ... condemnato. Si non paret, absolvito. Die a. führte ebenso wie die condemnatio zur Rechtskraft, also dazu, daß die Entscheidung - abgesehen vom Sonderfall der appellatio - unabänderlich war und daß der Streit definitiv beendet war, einer neuen Klage somit die exceptio rei iudicatae (Einrede der Rechtskraft) entgegenstand. Das Sprichwort omni…

[English version] (“Rückkehrrecht”, häufiger in der Verbindung ius postliminii) wird in Inst. Iust. 1,12,5 aus limen (Schwelle) abgeleitet, was bildlich auf die Grenze des röm. Staatsgebietes übertragen worden sei, so daß der Kriegsgefangene, der bei seiner Rückkehr die “Schwelle” des röm. Staates von jenseits ( post) her wieder überschritt, von Rechts wegen in seine frühere Stellung vor der Gefangennahme zurückkehrte. Mit der Gefangenschaft bei den Feinden (Kriegsgefangene) geriet ein röm. Bürger in Sklaverei. Wurde er z. B. freigekauft, stand ihm das ius p. als “Rückkehrrec…

[English version] [1] Röm. Ehreninschrift für Verstorbene Eine röm. Ehreninschrift auf dem Grab eines vornehmen Verstorbenen, an Statuen, Wachsmasken in Gebäuden oder auf öffentlichen Plätzen. Die Zensoren des J. 158 v.Chr. haben die öffentlich sichtbaren e. weitgehend beseitigt. Das Überlieferte stammt aus der Kaiserzeit, dient aber teilweise der überhöhenden Rekonstruktion längst vergangener Zeiten. Dies gilt auch für das bei weitem bekannteste Beispiel des e., die Inschr. auf den Statuen des Marstempels am Forum Augustum. Augustus ließ sie mit den Statue…

[English version] I. Allgemein In den Staaten Vorderasiens, in Ägypten und den städt. ant. Gesellschaften des Mittelmeerraums steht der Fremde, der sich zeitweise oder auf Dauer in diese Gesellschaften begibt, prinzipiell außerhalb des Rechtsschutzes, in den nur die vollberechtigten Bürger des jeweiligen Staates und mittelbar auch deren Sklaven und Hörige einbezogen sind. Im allg. bleiben die Fremden jedoch nicht rechtlos, sondern werden einem bes. F. unterworfen, das sie je nach Zweck und Dauer des…

[English version] Derjenige, der bei einer röm. Behörde etwas “anzeigt”, im engeren Sinne aber insbes. der Ankläger bei Erhebung der delatio nominis . Dem erfolgreichen d. winkten erhebliche Vorteile: In der Regel erhielt er eine Geldbelohnung in Höhe eines Bruchteils des Vermögens des Verurteilten ([1]; mit Ergänzungen bei [2]). Daraus ergab sich offenbar vielfältiger Mißbrauch (vgl. Cic. S. Rosc. 55: Roscius war wohl mit polit. Rückendeckung angeklagt worden, um sich sein Vermögen zu verschaffen). Erwies sich die Anklage als mutwillig, machte sich der d. selbst wegen calumnia …

(μόρα). [English version] [1] Abteilung im spartanischen Heer Im spartanischen Heer war m. spätestens seit 403 bis 371 v.Chr. die gebräuchliche Bezeichnung für die sechs größten Abteilungen der Fuß- und beigeordneten Reitertruppen (Xen. Lak. pol. 11,4; Xen. hell. 2,4,31; 4,5,3-19; Diod. 15,32,1); die m. wurde jeweils von einem polémarchos kommandiert (Xen. hell. 4,4,7; 5,4,51), hatte eine Sollstärke von über 1000 Mann und war in Lochen ( lóchos ) gegliedert. Burckhardt, Leonhard (Basel) Bibliography 1 J.F. Lazenby, The Spartan Army, 1985, 5ff. [English version] [2] der Verzug…

[English version] I. Religion F. ist die kultisch verehrte Personifikation der Treue und Wahrhaftigkeit [1]. Nach Varro (ling. 5,74) wurde sie von den Sabinern übernommen; ihr Kult ist noch am Ende des 2. Jh. n.Chr. bezeugt (Tert. apol. 24,5). F. wird als Frau mit Kranz oder Schleier auf dem Kopf und mit chitṓn und péplos bekleidet dargestellt [2]. Sie kommt oft in der Dichtung, selten in der Prosa vor. Sie gilt als uralte Gottheit (Sil. 1,329f.; 2,484ff.) und wird deswegen als cana gekennzeichnet (Verg. Aen. 1,292). Die legendäre Stiftung ihres Tempels auf dem Palatin geht…

[German version] [1] see Status [1] A. see Status [1] A. Schiemann, Gottfried (Tübingen) [German version] [2] Legal expression Translatio iuris ('transfer of rights') finds expression in the famous phrase: "A person cannot transfer to another person rights greater than those he has himself" (' nemo plus iuris transferre potest quam ipse habet', Ulp. Dig. 50,17,54). This formula from the early 3rd cent. AD reflects the concept in classical Roman law that subjective rights do not emerge anew in the person receiving them -- as was assumed in the ear…

[German version] A. Overview Novellae is the abbreviation for the Latin novellae leges (‘new laws’, also Greek nearaí diatáxeis). In general, it refers to the legislation of the emperors in Late Antiquity, enacted chronologically after the official collections of the Codices Theodosianus and Iustinianus ( codex II.C.). In a narrower sense, it refers to the novellae of Iustinianus [1], which in modern editions of the Corpus iuris constitute the fourth and last part of this 6th-cent. collection. In contrast to the other parts ( Institutiones Iustiniani, Digesta, Codex Iustinianus), h…

[German version] is the unanimous will of the parties of a contract (  contractus ). In Roman law it was the basis of the binding character of buying (  emptio venditio ), contracts of lease, work and employment (  locatio conductio ), of commission (  mandatum ) and association (  societas ). The ‘invention of’ consensus as the central element of a system of civil law is one of the ‘grandest juridical achievements, and one of the most influential for further development’ [1. 180]. The liability resulting from consensus necessitates neither a specific form nor an advance nor perfo…

[German version] According to Gai. Inst. 1,112, the term confarreatio is based on the fact that during this religious act a farreus panis (a bread made of emmer but not spelt) was sacrificed by the bridal couple to Iuppiter farreus (  far ). Apart from the   coemptio and a one-year valid duration of the marriage ( usus), the confarreatio was the third option of establishing the   manus (male power) over the wife. This effect was probably an ancillary result of the confarreatio while the highly festive conclusion of the marriage probably took centre stage in the ceremony. It to…

[German version] In Gai. Inst. 3,88 contractus constitutes, with delicts, one of the two higher branches of the whole Roman law of obligations. This has led many analysts to translate contractus simply as ‘contracts’. Originally, however, contractus was really not limited to a commitment as a contract but actually meant literally only ‘to incur (an obligation)’. In the period of the principate contractus was indeed understood to be linked to an agreement ( consensus, conventio) (Dig. 2,14,1,3). Even then, however, not every agreement would necessarily lead to a contractus. As no co…

(Literally 'sign', pl. signa). [German version] [1] (Name) see Supernomen (Name) see Supernomen Schiemann, Gottfried (Tübingen) [German version] [2] (Military matters) see Ensigns; Signals (Military matters) see Ensigns; Signals Schiemann, Gottfried (Tübingen) [German version] [3] Brand mark for slaves The brand mark by which the Romans identified slaves (Slavery). It was used to prevent escape and deter theft, and for criminals in general if they were condemned to work in the mines ( in metallum), thus becoming slaves. Those who had been branded in this manner could …

[German version] I. General In the states of the Near East, in Egypt and the ancient urban societies of the Mediterranean the alien, temporarily or permanently entering these societies, was in principle outside the protection of the law, in which only fully-qualified citizens of the respective state and indirectly also their slaves and dependants were included. In general aliens were not, however, left without rights, but were subject to a special law for aliens that protected them in differentiated…

(lit. 'standing', 'condition', 'position'). [German version] [1] In rhetoric (Rhetoric). The Latin rhetorical term status (Quint. Inst. 3,6,1; Cic. Top. 25,93) or constitutio (Quint. Inst. 3,6,2: 'ascertainment' i.e. of the point in dispute) equates to the Greek στάσις/ stásis (Quint. Inst. 3,6,3; Cic. Top. 25,93; Isid. Orig. 2,5,1). Walde, Christine (Basle) [German version] A. Definition In the rhetorical system (Rhetoric), status ('standing of the matter of dispute') was the determination, arrived at by a series of questions ( summa quaestio, 'crucial question': Quint. I…

[German version] A term in the Law of the Twelve Tables ( c. 450 BC,   Tabulae duodecim ). Its significance in legal history is still very disputed. Iurgium is a milder form of dispute than the litigation before court (  lis ); otherwise a general term for a dispute. It is conceivable that iurgium meant an out-of-court settlement, perhaps with the support of the pontifices. In the classical period (1st cent. BC - 3rd cent. AD) this form of resolution had long fallen out of use. Schiemann, Gottfried (Tübingen) Bibliography M. Kaser, K. Hackl, Das röm. Zivilprozeßrecht, 21997, 58).

[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 . Whether they were state slaves, as was generally supposed in the past, is entirely uncertain. In Cumae and Puteoli it was the independent undertakers, during the imperial age soldiers too, who fulfilled the duties of the carnifex. Schiemann, Gottfried (Tübingen) Bibliography W. Kunkel, Staatsordnung …

[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 vindicta is disputed (cf. most recently [1. 47 f.12]). The most probable connection appears to be with vim dicere ('to assert that one has - legally founded - power over the item'). Rei vindicatio Schiemann, Gottfried (Tübingen) Bibliography 1 A. Bürge, Römisches Privatrecht, 1999.

[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] The Latin term for a eunuch, but also for someone who is sterile without having been castrated ( castratio ; Ulp. Dig. 50,16,128). In Roman law, special family and inheritance rights applied to a spado: whereas we have a regulation from the 2nd cent. AD that, in general, allowed a spado to adopt (Gai. Inst. 1,103), under Justinian (6th cent. AD), a distinction was made: the earlier rule applies only to a natural s pado, not to a castrated person (Inst. Iust. 1,11,9). This corresponds to a  general trend against castration in Late Antiquity: permission to marry for a s pado, but …

[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 (  delatio nominis ) to appear before a public criminal court ( iudicium publicum); the origin of this term is unknown. What Gellius NA 2,4 has to say about the word expresses no confidence; it would therefore seem that its history was no longer known to Romans of the 2nd cent. AD. The employment of a religious term would indicate a very early origin. There is however no basis for a reconstruction. In [1] it is convincingly s…

[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 customary law throughout the Hellenistic world. Specifically, the damaged party could demand his share of compensation from the mariner in a service contract suit ( actio locati), while the mariner could in turn demand a compensation from the oth…

[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 civil actions Libellus (‘small document’) was, from around the mid 5th cent. AD, the technical term for the complaint in a Roman civil action, which by this time was less ponderously arranged than in the formerly customary procedures of the litis denuntiatio . The libellus contained the facts upon which the complaint was based, without detailed explanatory statements, and a motion to summon the respondent ( postulatio ). The judge firstly addressed the legitimacy of the summons request (‘conclusiveness test’), reaching a sententia …

[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 ful…

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 property that exclude…

[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 capitatio.  Annona;  Iugum Schiemann, Gottfried (Tübingen) Bibliography W. Goffart, Caput and Colonate: Towards a Histo…

[German version] also partus abactio, is  abortion in late Roman law. For a long time abortion in Rome was apparently not punishable, any more than it was in Greek law (  amblosis ). This was consistent with a legal system which even allowed abandonment of children. It is possible, though, that the censor made sure there was effective social control with regard to evident abuses. Not until a rescript of Sept. Severus and Caracalla (cf. Marcianus Dig. 47,11,4) was exile imposed on married and divorced women w…

[German version] Banishment to an island or a desert oasis was a capital punishment in Roman law; in the Principate (at the latest from Trajan's time, soon after AD 100), it replaced the   aqua et igni interdictio , which had replaced the death penalty for upper-class citizens towards the end of the Republic. The aqua et igni interdictio and deportatio involved lifelong loss of citizenship rights and property. As the offender had not escaped penalty by voluntary flight into exile, banishment ─ generally to a quite specific location (Dig. 48,22,6,1) ─ bec…

[German version] (from nubere, ‘to cloak oneself, to put on a veil’) refers to marriage in Roman society (Marriage III.B.). A title of the Digesta (23,2: De ritu nuptiarum) with 68 fragments is devoted to wedding customs (III.). This indicates that Roman jurists gave close attention to the requirements for a legal marriage ( iustum matrimonium ). Since fulfilling the matrimonial requirements at the time of the nuptiae was of critical importance for legal recognition of the marriage, the term nuptiae eventually came to be used as a synonym for matrimonium in referring to marriage in g…

[German version] The Roman jurists were probably the first who derived institutiones as a title for elementary textbooks from the term institutio (teaching course) in the 2nd cent. The significance of this Roman genre for European legal history extends far beyond what one might expect of ancient introductory didactic works: when the work of codifying Roman juristic law in the form of the  Digesta had advanced to a point that their success seemed certain, in AD 533 emperor Justinian commissioned his minister of justice  Tribonianus as well as the Byzantine l…

[German version] ( notarius). In legal cultures favouring the written record of acts of law, a notary is needed as an officially appointed scribe. This function was held, in Ptolemaic and Roman Egypt for example, by the agoranómoi , and in the Roman Imperial period and especially in Late Antiquity, the tabellio (documentary scribe). The Latin technical term notarius designates in Late Antiquity a senior official or officer with a special imperial mission, and also the secretary of the consistorium (as tribunus et notarius). Schiemann, Gottfried (Tübingen)

[German version] From a historical perspective it is only possible to speak of a criminal procedure (CP) in the technical sense if we can distinguish a field of criminal prosecution in the public (state) interest ( Punishment; Criminal law) from legal prosecution in the civil interest (including any civil law penalties, Lat.   poena ). The fact, for example, that private  revenge is channelled via the obligation to conduct a judicial procedure still does not constitute a CP: to protect public peace and state authority, only the …

[German version] I. General In antiquity homicide is often not yet differentiated from other crimes of killing ( Killing, crimes of). In many ancient laws the special reprehensibility or danger of a behaviour that resulted in the death of another human being was not yet considered a reason for a respective sanction. Thus, in the case of ancient Oriental laws, it would be inappropriate both with regard to the term and the matter to speak of particular offences amounting to homicide within the framework of crimes of killing. Neumann, Hans (Berlin) [German version] II. Greece In archaic Gre…

[German version] The carmen famosum (CF) (according to Paulus, Sent. 5,4,6) or malum carmen (defamatory poem) is a criminal offence like the   occentatio placed beside each other in the Tabulae duodecim (8,1). It is possible that this crime was only barely comprehensible even for ancient writers (e.g. Cic. Rep. 4,12), particularly because of the extremely severe penalty for mere defamation: probably  death penalty. It was a matter of private punishment, though, so it was barely more than a legally p…

[German version] A. Term In Roman legal language, lis is the expression for a dispute, in particular when it is taken to court. Litis contestatio (LC) thus refers to the ‘witnessing’ of such a dispute (Fest. p. 34,50 L.). The instigation of a claim (action) and defence (repudiation of action) in front of witnesses determined the course of a (civil) law suit. Until the predominance of the imperial cognitio procedure around AD 300, LC was the crucial point [1. 77] in the entire proceedings. Schiemann, Gottfried (Tübingen) [German version] B. Legis actio procedure The necessity of summonin…

[German version] (literally 'chains'). In legal provisions as early as the Twelve Tablets (Tab. 3,3; Tabulae Duodecim ) a creditor could place a debtor in vincula for the purpose of legal enforcement. In this way a culpability was established. Initially its goal was to force the payment of a debt by the debtor himself or a third party, but was also a transitional stage in taking control, after the expiry of a deadline, of the person of the debtor in order to sell him e.g into slavery or to have him work off the amount he was convicted of in bonded labour. This former function of vincula is alluded t…

[German version] Derived from contemnere (to despise; this meaning of the word survives today in the contempt of court of British law). In Roman law the contumacia meant above all the defendant's failure to obey a legal summons in the exercise of extraordinaria  cognitio . No similar use of the word contumacia is encountered before the introduction of this procedure in the Principate and of the contumacia, probably under Claudius. Admittedly a comparable function existed in earlier civil proceedings after the XII Tables (5th cent. BC) in a judge's ruling for o…

[German version] In Greek and Roman Antiquity, the verdict was determined entirely by the preceding complaint or charge, e.g. in Athens by dike [2] (civil complaint) and graphe [1] (criminal charge). For a verdict to be pronounced, there then remained nothing further to be established; it was merely a question of counting the votes of the deciding committee. The function of the ‘judge’ ( iudex ) in Roman law was essentially confined to hearing evidence. The legal judgement was anticipated by the admission of the complaint ( actio [2]), in particular by the praetor . Pro…

[German version] [1] Roman honorary inscription for deceased men An honorary inscription placed by the Romans on the tombs of deceased men of rank, on statues and wax masks within buildings or on public places. Most of the elogia on public display were removed by the censors of 158 BC. Most extant material dates from the Imperial period, where it was at times employed in the exalted reconstruction of times long since past. This also applies to the most important and best known examples of elogia, i.e. the inscriptions on the marble statues of the Mars temple on the Forum Augustu…

[German version] I. General points A contract is an agreement between two or more persons (possibly implicit) for the purpose of a legal result (e.g., a purchase as exchange of goods against money). Relative to the purpose of the transaction, contracts that in legal terms directly refer to the purpose, the ‘abstract’ legal transaction, which is independent of it, and the ‘ ad hoc legal transaction’ must be differentiated. A legal procedure is abstract if the legal effect is legally not linked to the result that the parties are attempting to achieve (e.g., r…

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[German version] The plural of mos ( mos maiorum , ‘custom of the ancestors’) describes an entire complex of normative requirements in Roman society. While the ideological value of tradition and conservatism stands in the foreground with the word …

(σχολαστικός/ scholastikós). [German version] [1] Advocate in Late Antiquity In Roman procedural law of Late Antiquity a scholasticus (literally: someone 'schooled') is the advocate of a pa…

[German version] I. Religion F. is the cultically venerated personification of faith and veracity [1]. According to Varro (Ling. 5,74), she had been adopted in Rome from the Sabini; her cult is still in evidence at the end of the 2nd cent. AD (Tert. Apol. 24,5). F. is depicted as a woman, her head adorned with a garland or veil, dressed in a   chitṓn and péplos [2]. She appears frequently in poetry, but rarely in prose. She was considered to be a very ancient deity (Sil. Pun. 1,329f.; 2,484ff.) and therefore referred to as cana (Verg. Aen. 1,292). According to Agathocles Perì Kyzíkou (Fest. 328 L…

[German version] A. Early legal systems The manumission of slaves is not attested for all ancient legal systems. Thus the Mesopotamian statutes of Eshnunna and Hammurabi make no such stipulations [1. 161]. In Hittite law too, nothing is known of manumission.…

A. Historical Overview [German version] 1. Ius in ancient Rome Ius, the Roman expression for law, went through considerable changes during the thousand-year history of the Roman state. Ius was originally the criterion by which the permitted exercise of liberty, particularly the legitimate exercise of power (over people and things) was distinguished from the disruptive exercise of force ( …

[German version] (literally 'strokes, lashes'), e.g. with a stick ( ferula) or a whip ( flagella), were a means of punishment ( castigatio) in Rome. They occurred as an independent (police) punishment primarily for slaves and members of the lower classes ( humiliores, see Honestiores ) in the framework of the policing powers of the magistrates ( …

[German version] In Roman criminal law, a type of criminal association, e.g. between thieves and publicans, as mentioned by Ulpia (Dig. 4,9,1,1), but in particular, the punishable election alliance (a defined case of election fraud,   ambitus ). Election alliances between candidates were probably regarded as harmless as…

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[German version] An old Roman legal rule deals with ignorantia, also ignoratio (ignorance). According to Paulus (3rd cent. AD, Dig. 22,6,9 pr.) it reads: iuris ignorantia nocet, facti vero ignorantia non nocet (‘ignorance of the law is harmful, but not ignorance of the facts’). The preferred term since the Middle Ages is error. For the Romans error and ignorantia were probably synonymous. Error in law neither prevents responsibility for individual behaviour (under criminal and civil law), nor the effectiveness of the   consensus in legal transactions inter vivos or in declarations…

[German version] [1] Latin praenomen Latin praenomen, customary initial abbreviation originally S., then, as it became rarer, from c. 100 BC, Sp. The rare nomen gentile, Spurilius, is derived from its diminutive form, of which no record survives. Some evidence also survives from the Italic languages, e.g. Oscan Spuriis (the personal name identical to the nomen gentile…

[German version] I. Ancient Orient In judging crimes involving killing, no distinction was made in the ancient Middle East between homicide and manslaughter. Killing, inciting a killing, and having knowledge of a killing were all treated as capital offences and punishable with capital punishment ( Death penalty). In addition, the perpetrator's property and (enslaved) family members could, along with other forms of compensation, be handed over to the victim's family. As the collections of laws show, …

[German version] The word petitio ('request') referred to a specific form of action used in the Roman formulary procedure ( formula ), for example for the actio (action), which arose out of a specific object or a specific sum of money (Dig. 12,1), or the action of the true heir against the possessor of an inheritance ( hereditatis petitio, Dig. 5,3; Cod. Iust. 3,31). Besides these, claims arising from the cognitio procedure ( cognitio ) were mostly referred to as petitio. A strong conceptual distinction between …

[German version] The PP, which continued to exist as paternal power in the German Civil Code was only replaced in Germany following an interim stage of parental power with effect from 1.1.1980 by paternal care, in Rome referred to the extensive right of control which the pater familias exerted over the family. Originally the PP, like the manus over the wife (Marriage III.C.), p…

[German version] A. Type of suit in the ius civile Sentencing to a particular payment could be achieved with the   legis actio per condictionem after the 3rd cent. BC: certa pecunia based on a lex Silia, other certae res based on a lex Calpurnia (cf. Gai. Inst. 4,17 b-19). The condictio (‘announcement’) is merely a procedural designation: the court date was not granted immediately but only after the expiry of an ‘announced’ term of 30 days to allow the debtor the option of compliance without court procedure. The certum in this suit is, in the first place, a payback guarantee for an …

[German version] I. Overview International law (IL) was established as a field in its own right during the early modern period (especially by Hugo Grotius, 1583-1645). The term   ius (A.2.) gentium, which originated in Roman law, established itself as its name. However, in antiquity this term did not mean IL but those concepts of  law in general that were assumed to be common to all peoples. This also included principles that belong to IL in its narrow sense such as the inviolability of diplomatic representatives (Dig. 50,7,18). Antiquity did not have a term for IL per se. However, ancient …

[German version] Expression describing an educational measure, as can be inferred from the meaning of the word ( castum agere, ‘to make pure’). The person carrying out the punishment is often excluded from liability for the consequences of castigatio upon the punished: thus the master punishing his apprentice (e.g. Dig. 9,2,5,3). The same goes for the paterfamilias with regard to his children and the master to his slaves (Dig. 7,1,23,1; 48,19,16,2). Castigatio as a policing or juridical measure is partly linked to such private authority-based relationships: by the …

[German version] In Roman law the thief who obtains his loot through break and entry. According to Dig. 47,18 he commits a criminal act that is prosecuted as a   crimen ( publicum). In the Republic it was still a civil offence. An escapee was called an effractor ( carceris) and was also prosecuted as the perpetrator of a crimen in a   cognitio extra ordinem . Schiemann, Gottfried (Tübingen)

[German version] In the Republican period in Rome the records (also   commentarii ) that a magistrate made or had made regarding the orders decreed by him (  acta ). They were personally archived by the magistrate after the end of his period in office (Cic. Sull. 42). From the 3rd cent. AD the term gesta superseded the expression commentarii for the official records. Apart from gesta the word cottidiana occurs in the same sense . With this meaning gesta can be found in all levels of the administration of late antiquity. Ultimately the recording of official files and negotiations by gesta was tr…

[German version] Latin expression and Roman legal term for widow (II.). Schiemann, Gottfried (Tübingen)

[German version] In classical Roman law, the deliberate, groundless and bullying filing of suits and charges. In the regulatory procedure for disputes amongst private individuals, the Praetor awarded a special iudicium calumniae decimae partis, i.e. a penalty for failure to observe correct procedure of 1/10 of the value of the claim (Gai. Inst. 4,175). In the case of manumission or status claims the sanction against the fiduciary claimant (  adsertor in libertatem ) amounted to as much as 1/3 of the value of the slave. The person affected could demand four times the value ( quadruplum) wi…

[German version] A discussor (Greek logothétēs, etym. from discutere in the meaning of ‘to check, investigate’) was an official of the late antique Roman state, to whom article 10,30 of the Cod. lust. was dedicated. The main tasks of the discussores lay in tax administration. In that context, they apparently carried out external audits of the tax bases set by the   census through self-assessment ( professio). They also appear as auditors for customs, public building projects, and state regulated prices. Administrative acts issued by the discussores were called   sententiae …

[German version] The technical term legacy in modern law is a literal translation of the Roman legatum . In the testamentary settlement of the succession of property rights after death, Roman law differentiated between the appointment of the fully valid legal successor as heir ( heres, for this see Succession, law of III.) - or several heirs - and the allocation of individual objects as legacies. Other ancient laws contain no comparable construction. Fideicommissum; Testament [2] IV. Schiemann, Gottfried (Tübingen)

[German version] A Roman forfeiture or cancellation agreement, it was usually a unilateral (hence: lex ) clause inserted in conditions of sale (see emptio venditio D), or a pledge ( fiducia , pignus ). Upon purchase the clause granted the vendor a right of rescission if the purchaser did not pay the purchase price - for instance, in the event of an agreement for payment in instalments or a date of payment. If the vendor exercised the right of rescission, he could request the return of the sold property by means of the actio venditi (according to the Sabinians) or by means of an actio in factum (acco…

[German version] I. Mesopotamia, Egypt Leasehold in the sense of the limited taking over of the use of land used for agricultural or gardening purposes against payment of a rent, was attested in Mesopotamia from the middle of the 3rd millennium BC. Both institutional households ( Palace; Temple) as well as private individuals could function as lessors. The rent was set either at an absolute value in kind or silver, or as a part of the harvest. The one third leasehold, which meant that the lessor received 1/3 of the harvest and the leaseholder received 2/3, was typical above all for the ea…

[German version] Someone who has something to announce or proclaim. In a narrower sense the term is applied to those who, whether as a private individual or on behalf of an office, report a criminal offence. Denuntiator is then very often synonymous with   delator . The excesses of the latter had a lasting effect on the public opinion on denunciation. Denuntiatores crop up in Rome even as junior officials in the role of heralds. For similar functions in Greek law   menysis ,   sykophantes . Schiemann, Gottfried (Tübingen)

[German version] In Rome being eligible to marry ( conubium) was a prerequisite for a legally valid marriage. Both partners had to have the conubium: Conubium est uxoris iure ducendae facultas. Conubium habent cives Romani cum civibus Romanis: cum Latinis autem et peregrinis ita, si concessum sit. Cum servis nullum est conubium (‘ Conubium is the legal ability to marry a woman. Roman citizens have the conubium to marry each other but, only by special dispensation, to marry Latins and other foreigners . There is no conubium with slaves’; Ulp. 5,3-5). That description omits to mentio…

[German version] Suicide, from neo-Latin suicidium ('self-killing'), a parallel formation on homicidium , was a subject of lively intellectual debate in Greek and Roman Antiquity: in schematic comparison it can be said that the followers of and successors to Plato, as well as Aristotle [6] and Neo-Platonism, condemned suicide, whereas some Sophists, and the Cynics (Cynicism) even more, acknowledged suicide as an expression of individual freedom, even expressly endorsing it. This point of …

[German version] The institution of the law court (LC) has existed from the beginning of state control in antiquity. It is no longer possible to deduce whether and where a phase of arbitration preceded it. In the documents of the Ancient Orient LCs are attested on many occasions [1; 2; 3]. The respective city prince or king was probably also the master of the court although in Mesopotamia there was also local jurisdiction (i.e. within certain groups) [2]. The scribes were suited for work as judg…

[German version] The ‘Basilics’, after the Greek term basiliká (n.pl.: ‘imperial’; sc. law books), are a compilation in Greek of the most important parts of the   Corpus iuris (  Digesta and   Codex (II)Iustinianus, as well as extracts from   Institutiones and   Novellae C.) from the time of the Byzantine emperor Leo(n) [9] VI (886-912). For five-and-a-half centuries the Basilics secured the continuance of Roman law in Byzantium (I. B.3). At the same time, they are an invaluable secondary source for the survival of the Corpus iuris, above all the Digesta (A.3). The Basilics also f…

[German version] in Roman court proceedings is the opposite of ‘condemnation’ (  condemnatio ). In civil proceedings the formula in which the praetors set down the programme for the iudex ends stereotypically with the judicial command ... condemnato. Si non paret, absolvito. Both absolutio and condemnatio were final and absolute, in other words the decision -- apart from the special case of   appellatio -- was irrevocable, the dispute was definitively concluded and the exceptio rei iudicatae (demurrer of legal force) stood in the way of a new action. The saying omnia iudicia absolutor…

[German version] (relations by marriage). Gai. Inst. 1,63 speaks of adfinitas in connection with the statement: Item (scil. uxorem ducere non licet) eam, quae nobis quondam socrus, aut nurus, aut priuigna, aut nouerca fuit. According to this in classical Roman law (possibly since Augustus' marriage legislation) marriage to mother-in-law, daughter-in-law, stepdaughter and stepmother is forbidden. This impediment to marriage was extended in late antiquity to relations by marriage of the first degree in the collateral line (brother's wife, wife's sister) (Cod. Theod. 3,12,2). Sch…

[German version] The Digests (Title 47,13) label cases of a forced granting of benefits to an officeholder as concussio (blackmail). Possibly, this is a further development of the reclamation procedure (  repetundarum crimen ). Punishable behaviour in office due to concussio was not prosecuted by a iudicium publicum but by extraordinaria   cognitio . Therefore, it was probably only considered an independent offence in the Imperial period (2nd cent. AD). The sources present pretending a (higher) official authority, orders of a superior and threats of an unfounded suit as means of concu…

[German version] I. General The most important foundations of later European conceptions of law were laid in OT Judaic law, in Greek law as practical counterpart to the beginnings of philosophical reflection on justice ( Pre-Socratics; Justice), and above all in Roman law as the defining authority for the development of secular European jurisprudence since the late Middle Ages ( Reception). Law always comprises regulation on the part of a sizeable community for the settlement of conflicts between…

[German version] A. Ancient Near East There is evidence of personal (corporal) liability through surety (especially standing surety for another, rarely for oneself) as a means of guaranteeing a contract in Mesopotamian cuneiform texts from the mid-3rd millennium BC [2. 253] into the Hellenistic period [3. 64-69], using different terminologies and in different forms. The Gestellungsbürgschaft ('surety of appearance') was common (promise of the guarantor to deliver the debtor to the creditor for enforcement). In the late Babylonian (6th-4th cents. BC) Stillesitzbürgschaft ('s…

[German version] From a statement by the Roman jurist, Paul (Dig. 50,16,144) the meaning of paelex (also pelex, pellex, different in Greek pallakḗ ) is that of a female partner to whom one is not married (i.e not uxor, Marriage III.C.). The legal status of paelex was treated in Roman law mainly in the context of concubinage ( concubinatus ). Schiemann, Gottfried (Tübingen)

[German version] (literally 'that which is written down'), in the field of law, denoted all Roman documents, and (as literacy increased) from the Principate, but esp. in late antiquity, e.g. the testament, the note of hand ( cheirógraphon ), generally the contract, but also a legal opinion or a legal ruling, provided that these were given in writing. In a narrower sense, probably arising from the fact that the Roman tax farmers ( publicani ) 'marked down' transactions of relinquishment of public pasture to private (sub-)lessees, scriptura was the payment the lessee had to make for…

[German version] The actus contrarius of a   confarreatio , which dissolved a marriage joined in this form and followed the same ceremony. At the same time it effected the termination of the (former) husband's spousal powers (  manus ). Schiemann, Gottfried (Tübingen) Bibliography 1 W. Kunkel, s.v. matrimonium, RE 14, 2277 2 Treggiari, 24.

[German version] An auctoratus is, according to Gai. Inst. 3,199, a dependent person, who is named together with the minor children and wives as well as the indentured servants ( iudicati). The position of the auctoratus probably rested on a willing subjection by oath ( auctoramentum), perhaps also on a duty of service on behalf of the   pater familias of the auctoratus to the employer. Since the end of the Republic, a free man could commit himself as auctoratus as a  gladiator, which did not protect him from the   infamia which was otherwise associated with the pos…

[German version] In Roman law a permanent union between man and woman without affectio maritalis, i.e. without the intention of both parties of permanently entering a legal bond for forming a household, procreating and raising children. Since the marital laws of Augustus, the concubinatus increasingly became a form of living together if marriage was prohibited. Thus, senators and their descendants were prohibited under the l. Iulia de maritandis ordinibus from marrying a freedwoman, actress or daughter of an actor. Freeborn Romans could not enter into a marriage…

[German version] I. Ancient Orient The death penalty as a sanction for capital offences is attested in the ancient Near East from the latter part of the 3rd millennium BC as a penalty in varying frequency in the respective statute books and (less often) as a sentence in  documents of  procedural law. Capital offences were, in particular, homicide/killing ( Killing, crimes involving),  robbery, abduction, adultery, various cases of sodomy and incest and other statutory definitions of offences, princip…

[German version] A. Definition In Roman hierarchical relationships, the term patronus refers to the person of higher rank and correlates thus with the term cliens ; the patronus took the cliens into his fides. Lintott, A. W. (Oxford) [German version] B. Private law The patronus was the holder of a right to control, initially probably as a comprehensive authority over friends (guests) and freedmen, but from about the 2nd cent. BC only as a bundle of rights of the former slave owner in relation to the freedmen manumitted by him. In the 12 Tables (tab. 8,21; Tabulae duodecim), the term patronus …

[German version] In Roman law the ‘simple’ death penalty by decapitation (whence also: capitis amputatio), as opposed to being burned alive (  crematio ) and crucifixion (  crux ). All three methods of execution appear in Paulus, Sent. 5,17,2 as summa supplicia (most severe punishments). Certainly from the time of Caligula capital punishment by damnatio ad bestias (animal combat in the arena) was also current practice. Decollatio was typically reserved for higher-status freemen (  honestiores ), while crematio and crux were carried out on ordinary freemen (  humiliores ) and slaves. D…

[German version] ('Revocation') occurs in two special senses in Roman law: (1) as revocatio in servitutem (' revocatio into slavery'), the revocation of manumission, probably only current in Late Antiquity (cf. Cod. Iust. 6,7,2 pr.); (2) in civil actions. There, the convicted party, having already paid, could demand retrial ( restitutio ) only with the risk of being compelled to pay the claimant for the litigation a second time by revocatio in duplum (' revocatio for double the value') if the restitution failed. This applied for the formula procedure ( formula ) and…

[German version] (literally 'to turn your back'). In Roman law, the term refers to the turning away of the private accuser in a criminal trial ( accusatio , delatio nominis ) from the case he had brought against the defendant. Beginning with the SC Turpillianum (AD 61), the tergiversatio led to a case against the accuser himself. When the withdrawal was unjustified, the tergiversatio was punished with a fine (Dig. 47,15,3,3). Beyond that, the private accuser lost his right to hold an office as well as his civic honour ( infamia , Dig. 48,16,2). The defendant who had…

[German version] [1] Guardianship (Latin 'guardianship', from tueri, 'to protect'). Schiemann, Gottfried (Tübingen) [German version] I. Basis and typology of guardianship Tutela occurred in Roman law as tutela over those not yet of age ( impuberes) and women ( tutela mulierum), and concerned those who were not subject to the personal power of the 'father of the family' ( pater familias ) or the husband ( manus ), and were thus persons 'in their own right' ( sui iuris). The Twelve Tables ( tabulae duodecim ; tab. 5,6, c. 450 BC) prescribed the nearest mal…

[German version] An iron chain used to tether a debtor's feet  ( ferreum vinculum, quo pedes impediuntur, Fest. 162,1-2). According to the Twelve Tables (Lex XII tab. 3,3),  a creditor was apparently permitted to use the nervus to take the debtor into a kind of coercive detention, if the latter did not pay his debts despite having been sentenced.  Schiemann, Gottfried (Tübingen)

[German version] The technical term from the beginning of the 3rd cent. AD for a criminal law pardon by the Roman emperor (e.g. Cod. Just. 9,23,5 of the year 225). However there had long been pardons in Rome. They could happen during criminal proceedings (e.g. Mod. Dig. 48,16,17) as well as after them in order to lift the sanction imposed, and even before the initiation of any prosecution. In this way, Julius Caesar ordered the people's tribune M. Antonius to arrange a plebiscite to pardon those condemned according to Pompey's law on electoral fraud (  ambitus ) (Caes. …