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[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] 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.…

[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. Acco…

[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…

I. Ancient Orient [German version] A. General …

[German version] Seven bronze tablets, found in 1444 in Iguvium (modern Gubbio), between 87 cm × 57 cm and 40 cm × 28 cm in size, som…

[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; …

[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 Oscan language but in Latin script, dealing with administration of j…

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[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…

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] 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 S…

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[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]. …

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