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[German version] Alliance entered into with the Latins after the victory over them at the Lacus Regillus in 493 BC by the consul Sp.  Cassius [I 19] Vecellinus, which was extended to the Hernici in 486. The document was still preserved at the time of Cicero on a bronze column (the original?) in the Forum (Cic. Balb. 53). The historicity of the text is acknowledged today, as is the early dating, contrary to earlier research [1. 68f.; 2. 299-301]. The main conditions are found in Dion. Hal. Ant. Rom. 6,95: peace …

[German version] A bronze plaque in the Capitoline Museum in Rome contains the end of the lex de imperio Vespasiani, the so-called enabling law for Vespasianus, with which the Senate decreed at the end of AD 69 - after the death of Vitellius - to Vespasian cuncta principibus solita (‘all that is usual for emperors’, Tac. Hist. 4,3,3), and which was put before the comitia at the beginning of 70 [1. 104f.]. The inscription (from the Lateran?), which no-one could read at the time because of its classical capital letters, served Cola di Rienzo in 1347 for the foundation…

[German version] Block of black marble found at Rome in 1899 during excavations in the Forum Romanum in front of the Curia Iulia. It is probably the niger lapis in comitio from Fest. 184 L. The upper section of the stone is damaged; on five sides it bears a fragmentary inscription, difficult to read and dating from the (early?) 6th cent. BC (probably the lex sacra of the Volcanal, the surrounding sacred precinct), which mentions a ‘king’ ( recei), his ‘herald’ ( calator) and iouxmenta (draught animals? carts?). This may be the inscription which Dionysius of Halicarnassus (Ant. …

[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…

[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] 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] A federation of towns ( populi) in Latium Vetus that was organized around the sanctuary of Jupiter Latiaris on mons Albanus , but in part also around that of Diana of Aricia. The rights of members were regulated in the foedus Cassianum . The federation came increasingly under Roman control, first during the time of the Tarquinian kings and then in the 4th cent. BC. In 338 the majority of its members was annexed and the remainder became the prisci Latini. Latini, Latium (with map) Galsterer, Hartmut (Bonn) Bibliography T. J. Cornell, The Beginnings of Rome, 1995, 293ff. H. Gals…

[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] 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] Grove of oaks ( aesculus) in Rome, to whose branches the coronae civicae were bound. It lay in the western Campus Martius, opposite the island in the Tiber, by the Lungotevere Cenci. Galsterer, Hartmut (Bonn) Bibliography S. Panciera, Ancora tra epigrafia e topografia, in: L'Urbs. Espace Urbain et Histoire, 1987, 62-73.

[German version] In the TC Roman censors registered citizens from whom they had withdrawn the active or passive right to vote, by means of a nota censoria and/or by transfer into another tribus ( tribu movere). The term TC is explained from the original inclusion in this list of those citizens of the Etruscan city of Caere who were liable for military service. Presumably Caere gave its name to the list because in c. 390 BC it is supposed to have been the first community to receive civitas sine suffragio: Caere had provided help to Rome during the Gaulish attack in c. 390 BC and had in thanks b…

[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] Alleged treaty from the time of king Tarquinius Superbus (end 6th cent. BC), which was still extant in the Augustan period on a shield covered in cowhide in the temple of Semo Sancus; documented in Dion. Hal. Ant. Rom. 4,58,4 and on coins of two Antistii (family from Gabii, C.  Antistius [II 7] Vetus and C. Antistius Reginus) from the Augustan period: FOEDUS P.R. CUM GABINIS (RIC2 1, 68 no. 363 and 73 no. 411). Main content was an isopoliteia between Rome and Gabii. According to Varro (Ling. 5,33) the ager Gabinus represented an exceptional feature of augural law between the age…

[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 . …

[German version] [1] Governor of Pannonia and Moesia, proclaimed emperor rather than Gallienus in 260 AD Governor of Pannonia and Moesia, proclaimed emperor rather than  Gallienus in AD 260 by the Moesian legions after  Valerianus was captured by the Persians and the Sarmatians threatened to invade (S HA Tyr. Trig. 9,1; Aur. Vict. Caes. 33,2; Zon. 12,24, p. 143 D). Gallienus' cavalry leader  Aureolus defeated him at Mursa near Sirmium. I. lost his life while fleeing (Zon. loc. cit..; Aur. Vict. Caes. 32,2; Eutr. 9,8,1; Oros. 7,22,10; Chron. min. 1, 521,45 Mommsen). Franke, Thomas (Boch…

[German version] I. Ancient Orient In the field of  legal texts in cuneiform, the political structure of the Mesopotamian confederation, that at times comprised small territorial states and at times large states stretching over the whole of southern Mesopotamia, created regional peculiarities that are demonstrated above all in the form of documents as well as in substantive law. The essential parameters of the legal system were defined by the structure of the society (Social structure), economy and f…

in Latin referred both to an order (e.g. the marching order or that of a legal process) as well as to groups or corporations, into which several or many persons were organized (also in the plural ordines), e.g. the Roman equites ( ordo equester). [German version] I. Procedural law In a procedural context the term ordo is traditionally used in the composition of the ' ordo iudiciorum' (Cod. Iust. 7,45,4). It signified the proper types of legal procedure (cf. still today: 'proper' jurisdiction) both of the formulary procedure ( formula ) as well as of the actions at law proceedings ( legis actio …

I. Ancient Orient [German version] A. General In the more restricted sense, inscriptions are texts - usually of monumental character - that, because of their function, are intended to last, as well as texts that are written on other-than-usual writing materials, e.g. clay tablets,  papyrus,  ostraka, etc. Inscriptions are closely tied to other texts by commonalities of writing, form and content. Therefore, despite specific research efforts, ancient oriental epigraphy has not developed as an independent…

[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…