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[German version] (derived from Lat. viginti, 'twenty'; literally, 'the twentieth part'). In Rome, V. was the term referring to five-per-cent taxes [IV]; esp. important were the V . manumissionum or libertatis (manumission tax) and the V. hereditatium (inheritance tax). According to the annalistic tradition (Liv. 7,16,7; on this [3]), the V. manumissionum or libertatis was already decided upon in 357 BC by the Roman army through a vote according to tribus near Sutrium and was afterwards approved by the Senate. Probably from the beginning, it was…

[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] (literally: 'public matter', in contrast to res privata, 'private matter') is the sum of the possessions, rights and interests of the Roman state, where the term 'state' is understood not as an abstract concept separable from its citizenry, but as the concrete manifestation of the generality of its citizens: res publica est res populi (Cic. Rep. 1,25,39; ' res publica is the affair of the people'; Populus). Accordingly, res publica is not identifiable with the modern concepts of 'state' or 'constitution'; in its original meaning it denotes differen…

[German version] Stands for s(enatus) p(opulus)q(ue) R(omanus) and was the usual title of the Roman state as embodied in its two governing bodies, the 'Senate and People of Rome' (i.e. not, as in Greece, the people alone, e.g. hoi Athēnaîoi), from the 1st cent. BC. Before this, the populus was in first place (first evidence in the decree of Aemilius [I 32] Paullus for Lascuta, early 2nd cent. BC: ILS 15; cf. Pol. 21,10,8). From the time of Augustus, SPQR appears on inscriptions as the author of consecrations (e.g. of buildings and monuments), later also as the recipient of dedications. Populus…

[German version] The five bronze fragments, belonging together, of the TH (from Heba in Etruria) can - just like the Tabula Siarensis found in Siarum (in the province of Seville) in 1980 and other fragments from Todi and Rome - be related to a dossier containing a senatus consultum and a law, based on it, of the consuls of AD 20 ( lex Valeria Aurelia) with decrees for the honouring of Germanicus [2], who had died in AD 19. The dossier provides insight into the functioning of the comitia centuriata during the Imperial period and into the mobilisation of public loyalty for the imperi…

[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] Derived from the Latin praes, 'bondsman', who acted as guarantor with his property for another in the leasing of public duties (and from time out of mind probably also in civil law: cf. Lex XII tab. 1,4). Praedium is used almost synonymously with fundus (Large estates); where more closely defined, a praedium is usually denoted by the place in whose territory it lay, a fundus by the name of the original owner (e.g. praedium Nomentanum, fundus Sextilianus). Praedium includes the estate in the literal sense as well as the buildings on it. Depending on the location or owner,…

[German version] Populus Romanus Quirites (or, later, Quiritium) was the official term for the Roman citizenry. It contains the name of the city ( Romanus) and that of the populus ( Quirites), as with Ardea ( Ardeates Rutuli) and Lavinium ( Laurentes Lavinates), where the name of the city stood alongside that of the people living there. The singular form, Quiris, survives only in archaic formulae (Fest. 304: ollus Quiris). The etymological derivation of the term is still disputed. The Romans themselves wished to separate Quirites neither from the god Quirinus nor the Quirinal Hil…

[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] 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…

[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 collegium of eight municipal officials (Municipium) in cities of eastern Central Italy: Amiternum, Nursia, Trebula Mutuesca, Interamnia Praetuttianorum and Plestia. From the end of the Republic, when octoviri are first documented epigraphically, for the most part the office broke down into individual groups. In Trebula Mutuesca, for instance, there were two VIIIviri duovirali potestate, VIIIviri aedilicia potestate, VIIIviri aerarii and VIIIviri fanorum each (CIL IX 4883, 4891, 4896). It is clear that the six-official scheme then usual in …

[German version] (Herakleiensis). Bronze tablet (1·84 m × 0·38 m), broken into two parts, found in the area of ancient Heraclea [10] in Lucania. On the front sides of both parts, there are late 4th cent. BC regulations for the administration by public authorities of the estates of two temples, one of Dionysus and one of Athena. The end of a 1st cent. BC Latin text is preserved on the back of one of these tablets. Since the expected sanctio is missing, it can not be a law and therefore also not, as formerly presumed (as e.g. [1. 113-120]), a Caesarian l ex Iulia municipalis. The surviving pa…

[German version] Only Latin city law extant in large sections, for a Latin municipium from the time of Domitian (end 1st cent. AD); found during illegal excavations in El Saucejo in the south of the modern province of Seville in southern Spain in 1981, and purchased by the authorities for the National Museum of Archaeology in Seville (initial publication: [2], with English translation; authoritative text: [4]). Of the original ten bronze tablets (H 58 cm, B 91 cm), six (III, V, VII-X) are almost completely extant, if also partially in pieces. We thus possess c. 70% of the entire text, ta…

[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] A. Definition The term "Roman confederation" or "Italic Federation" (Beloch) refers to the Roman manner of governing Italy during the Republic. The Romans themselves apparently had no name for this structure, in documents one encounters the paraphrase socii nominisque (or nominisve) Latini quibus ex formula milites in terra Italia imperare solent [1]. Galsterer, Hartmut (Bonn) [German version] B. Participants Geographically, the confederation comprised the Apennine peninsula without the islands. The Ligurian and Gallic tribes of Upper Ita…

[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] Sigla, earlier notae, is the Latin name for abbreviations. Since the time of the Greeks, S. for names, titles, places etc. have been found on coins, conditioned by the small space available. In Greek inscriptions, on the other hand, S. are, at least in pre-Roman times,  extraordinarily rare. This is in stark  contrast to their extensive use amongst the Etruscans and above all the Romans, where some types of information - such as first names, tribus, former offices and set phrases fo…

[German version] Funerary inscriptions (FI) (now probably approaching a number of 200,000, cf. [3. 124,1]) emerged in the context of the cult of the dead with the purpose of marking the grave of a specific person so that sacrifices for the dead could be performed at the correct place. Furthermore, they soon took on the function of keeping alive the memory of this person and his achievements. They are located above ground at the burial site, or, in communal graves, on the urn holding the ashes, on the sarcophagus, or on the lid of the loculus (the burial niche). In addition to the inscrip…