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[German version] Text of a decision of the Senate dated 10 December AD 20, recording the trial of Cn. Calpurnius [II 16] Piso and the verdict of the senatus against him. Piso had been accused of the murder by poison of Germanicus [2] and of maiestas [C], and had taken his own life on 8 December. The SC, 176 lines in length, starts, after the prescript and verdict motion ( relatio) of Tiberius, with describing the facts of the case, and goes on to recount the penalties imposed on Piso and his 'followers' ( comites), Visellius Karus and Sempronius Bassus and the acquittal of Piso's childr…

Colleges of civil servants in Rome, Italy and the west of the Roman empire, consisting of four ( quattuor) persons ( viri) who could be charged with a variety of duties. [German version] I. Rome 1) The college of the quattuorviri viarum curandarum (initially probably called quattuorviri viis in urbe purgandis) had the task of providing for the street cleaning within the city walls. They belonged to the 'twentymen' ( vigintiviri), a group of offices held by young senators prior to the first magistrateship of the c ursus honorum . The nature of their task makes t…

[German version] Wooden tablets ( tablets), a few millimetres thick and inscribed in ink, first identified in the fort of Vindolanda (modern Chesterholm) on Hadrian's Wall in Britain in 1973. Since the first examples were found more than a thousand of these tablets - mostly about 90 mm by 200 mm in size - have been excavated there, together with hundreds of wax tablets. The invariably damp boggy ground in Vindolanda certainly favoured their preservation, but such tablets have also been found in other Roman military camps (e.g Carlisle;  cf. [4]) since, and can be assumed in others. In analog…

[German version] Related to Greek * oikos (cf. oikos ) and Old High German wick, the Latin word vicus means 'a number of houses' and described both a village within an agricultural area ( Pagus ) and a group of houses on a street in a city (and hence often also used as a street name, e.g. in Rome; cf. [6]). Vici were able to create wealth, had their own cults and their own officials. According to Festus (p. 502 and 508 Lindsay) some had their own political organization and held courts ( partim habent rem publicam et ius dicitur), others had only the right to hold markets. They were the visible centres of p…

[German version] Agreement of 1931 regarding the use of text-critical symbols in the apparatus of editions of Greek and Latin texts, papyri, inscriptions, etc. The most important of these are square brackets [ ] for marking the supplementation of no longer extant letters, round brackets ( ) for resolving ancient abbreviations, and curving brackets   so that letters incorrectly placed by the scribe can be eliminated and double brackets [[ ]] to mark symbols that were deliberately erased in ancie…

[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] Senatorial decision, named after the AD 47 suffect consul, Cn. Hosidius [4] Geta [1. 609-612]. It provided for public regulation of private construction work (Building law B.). The bronze tablet with the text of the SC was excavated at Herculaneum around 1600 and is now lost. Like the somewhat later SC Volusianum (AD 56), which was recorded on the same tablet, the SC Hosidianum penalized the purchase of domus and villae for the purpose of demolition with subsequent resale at a higher price of the materials and land, to stop the speculation in urban…

[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…

( 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…