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[German version] Reiectio civitatis refers to the relinquishment of civil rights, reiectio iudicis to the right of the parties in a civil or criminal suit to reject a certain number of judges who would be considered for deciding the case according to the list of judges, . Paulus, Christoph Georg (Berlin) Bibliography M. Kaser, K. Hackl, Das römische Zivilprozeßrecht, 21996, 195, 198.

[German version] Literally a confession, but in the modern sense also an acknowledgement. It led immediately to the enforcement proceeding instead of a sentence according to the principle that the confessing party should be considered as having been sentenced: confessus pro iudicato habetur (est) (Dig. 42,2,1; 3; 6; Cod. Iust. 7,59,1). However, there were exceptions: 1) In criminal proceedings a defendant confessing to certain grave crimes (e.g., crimen laesae maiestatis: the most famous case being Jesus before Pilate, Mk 15,2ff.) was treated as sentenced. All th…

[German version] (literally: 'usable time'). In Roman law, a particular manner of calculating a time limit. Whereas in the case of a tempus continuum ('continuous period of time') the initial date and the expiry of the term are unalterably fixed, TU implies taking into account only those days on which the time can be used by the relevant party. Either the beginning of the term is made dependent on the first possible use and the term then proceeds as a continuum (e.g. praetorian lawsuits, Dig. 15,2,1 pr.), or the beginning is fixed and in the course of the term only those da…

[German version] seems to have originally meant the one who goes there ( ad baetere), and therefore refers to the person who rules in a dispute by looking closely at it in contrast to the iudex judging purely according to a petition. An arbitrator of this kind, with knowledge of the facts, was especially necessary in actions for partition, which instead of being aimed at a conviction or acquittal were aimed at a legally operative allocation (  adiudicatio ). However, this distinguishing feature between arbiter and iudex was already becoming increasingly vague in the law of the Tw…

[German version] (excessive claim, cf. Cod. Iust. 3,10) - or, more commonly, plus petere - is a figure of Roman law intimately related to the artful construction of the formula in the Roman formula procedure. The pluspetitio led to sanctions or reactions in procedural law, which could range from loss of a case to corrective action (as today with the award of legal costs) within a legal dispute. According to Gaius [2] (Inst. 4,53ff.; 68), classical Roman law of the 1st-3rd cents. AD distinguished between four manifestations of the pluspetitio: re, tempore, loco, causa (factual, temporal,…

[German version] The attestation of a legal transaction (for its validity) or another action (as evidence in a trial) according to Roman law. The enforceability of legal positions has always been dependent on the possibility of proving the conditions for their coming into existence. The importance of witnesses for criminal proceedings is evident; however, it was no less so for civil trials. Although documentary evidence surpassed the evidence of witnesses for the latter branch of law toward the en…

[German version] ‘Laying on hand’ occurs twice in connection with the most ancient type of Roman trial, the legis actio : first, anyone wishing to accuse another may, if the defendant refuses to attend, force him to appear before the praetor by manus iniectio, i.e. the use of force. The defendant may escape only by means of a vindex (a person who guarantees the appearance of the defendant at a fixed later date; see lex XII tab. 1-4). The second context for this a measure of compulsion - also involving a vindex - was that of the enforcement of a confirmed debt ( legis actio per manus iniectionem, lex X…

[German version] means the affirming repetition of a formal contractual declaration by the magistrate. It is already attested as such by Gell. NA 17,2,10 for Twelve Tables proceedings. Macrob. Sat. 1,16,14 refers to do, dico, addico ( tria verba sollemnia) as the words probably ceremoniously and formally pronounced by the magistrate during the most important steps in conducting the case, which were, moreover, only permissible on dies fasti (Varro, Ling. 6,30). The magistrate's affirmation was probably the most constitutive law-creating act, occurring for instance in in iure cess…

[German version] can in a legal context be any communication made to another person, orally or in writing, in pursuit of a legal objective. The person making the declaration and the person receiving it do not have to be private individuals but can also be office-holders or even the curule aediles' edict (Dig. 21,1,37). If such a communication is addressed to someone who is absent, it is termed detestatio (Dig. 50,39,2). The denuntiatio can have an informative or communicative character, as for example the requisite (in late antiquity, threefold) notification of a pr…

[German version] Arbitration, unlike criminal and civil jurisdiction, which operate with the force of the state, is invoked voluntarily by the disputing parties. It has neither been proven nor completely refuted that because of this lack of state influence arbitration represents the beginning of all jurisdiction (thus for Rome esp. [1]). In Roman sources in any case arbitration has an independent position alongside all three types of state trial (  ordo). There was also arbitration already in Greece (see   diaitētai [1]). The Roman compromissum (agreement of the parties to subm…

[German version] A central concept of Roman  procedural law, it appears in several different senses: in the wider sense for the whole process, in the narrower sense (esp. in the context of the legis actio and formulary procedure which are divided into different procedural stages) for the last stage which took place before the judge (  iudex ). Upon transition to the cognitio procedure (  cognitio ) and concomitant elimination of the procedural stages, iudicium then only referred to the whole process for which the word processus has been in habitual usage since the MA. Additional …

[German version] In general civil law the specific designation of a thing or person (Dig. 6,1,6). This term lies at the origin of the interpretative formula falsa demonstratio non nocet (‘a wrong expression does not affect the matter's validity’), which was used by the Romans mainly when interpreting a will (Inst. Ius. 2,20,30) and which is still current today. In the context of civil proceedings demonstratio, set out at the beginning of a large number of legal arguments, refers to the concise exposition of the circumstances of the disputed issue (Gai. Inst. …

[German version] is occasionally used generally for a demand or a request in Roman law as a synonym of petitio . For a Roman formula lawsuit in the 3rd cent. AD (in the context of the edict title de postulando; cf. also Cod. Iust. 2,6) Ulpian defines postulare as desiderium suum vel amici sui in iure ... exponere: vel alterius desiderio contradicere ('to expound to the court one's own or a friend's request or to contradict somebody else's request', Dig. 3,1,1,2). By a postulatio actionis a plaintiff requested a praetor to allow the action on which he had agreed with the accused by way of an editio …

[German version] In Roman law, satisdatio (the giving of a security) constituted a special form of the cautio (warranty). Anyone obliged to the satisdatio had to provide a guarantor at regular intervals (Dig. 2,8,1). The guarantor had to be idoneus (“fit”, i.e. solvent); this could be established by an arbiter (a judge with administrative discretion) (Dig. 2,8,9 and 10 pr). It was also a fundamental requirement that the bondsman was of the same legal status as the party furnishing security. Cases in which a satisdatio could be arranged by the praetor or where it was even prescribed ipso ju…

[German version] A lawsuit brought before the praetor concerning credited money or some other res certa could be concluded before the   litis contestatio if the plaintiff made the defendant take an oath on the validity of the claim involved in the suit. The defendant hereupon had the choice of paying or denying the claim; the latter is the abiuratio (Isid. Orig. 5,26,21). If he abjured, the plaintiff's   actio was denied; sometimes instead of this the defendant was granted an exceptio iurisiurandi (Dig. 12,2,9 pr.), if, for instance, the existence and content of the oath gave…

[German version] The PB (confiscation of goods) was practiced at Rome as a consequence of a conviction from time immemorial (cf. Liv. 2,5,2; 2,8,2; 3,55,7). The PB originally surrendered the culprit and his assets as a consecratio (dedication) to the deity in the sense of a proscription (probably destruction of belongings, perhaps also transfer to temple property). In the later Republican period (probably from 169 BC, cf. Liv. 43,16,10), it developed into a (mandatory) supplementary punishment in case of convict…

[German version] A term adopted into contemporary languages in the meaning of ‘appeal against a sentence’, appellatio in Rome originally referred only to prevention by magisterial decree. An intercessory action of this kind connects the areas of meaning of appellatio and   provocatio , (Cic. Quinct. 65; Liv. 3,563; Plin. HN 6,90). They caused immediate and irrevocable discontinuance of the current process or action as well as, in some cases, referral to the person invoked or a new decision by him. In probably the most …

[German version] Either the payment order pronounced in a civil law trial (Dig. 2,12,6: iudicatum facere vel solvere), or the entire judgement; the latter primarily in the expression res iudicata; e.g. Dig. 42,1,1: res iudicata dicitur, quae finem controversiarum pronuntiatione iudicis accipit: quod vel condemnatione vel absolutione contingit (‘ res iudicata is the end of the proceeding that has been brought about by the judgement, which is either sentencing or acquittal’). In the masculine form iudicatus means a sentenced person, e.g. Dig. 42,2,1: confessus pro iudicato est (‘wh…

[German version] I. Alter Orient Even in the cuneiform laws (Cuneiform, legal texts in) going back to the middle of the 3rd millennium, it is impossible to discern an epoch in which it was true that virtually only the strong were able to claim their rights [7]. On the basis of Old Babylonian letters and some stipulations of the Codex Ḫammurapi it is certainly the case that self-help played a legally recognized role [8], and modulated self-help is furthermore mooted for Hittite law [5]. Widespread use of the word 'judge' (DI.KU5/ dajjānum) from the Old Akkadian period (24th/22nd cents.…

[German version] In most of the lawsuit formulae reported by Gaius (but also by others, e.g. Dig. 46,4,18,1) the blanket name Aulus Agerius (= is qui agit), stands for the plaintiff, where the actual name is to be inserted in the specific case (expressly the l. Rubria: CIL I 205), while the defendant is called Numerius Negidius (= is a quo numeratio postulatur et qui negat). However, all four names can be applicable in individual cases.  Formula Paulus, Christoph Georg (Berlin) Bibliography W. Kunkel, Röm. Rechtsgesch., 91980, 84.