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[German version] has two meanings in Roman law: one describing a ‘measure’ primarily of land, the other - according to the matter in hand - the same as the modern concept of an instruction (on a gift or testamentary benefit). M. agri (the land measure) was the subject of a well-known action from Paul. sent. 2,17,4  ( actio de modo agri):…

[German version] A Roman forfeiture or cancellation agreement, it was usually a unilateral (hence: lex ) clause inserted in conditions of sale (see emptio venditio D), or a pledge ( fiducia , pignus ). Upon purchase the clause granted the vendor a right of rescission if the purchaser did not pay the purchase price - for instance, in the event of an agreement for payment in instalments or a date of payment. If the vendor exercised the right of rescission, he could request the return of the sold property by means of the actio venditi (according to the Sabinians) or by means of an actio in factum (acco…

[German version] I. Mesopotamia, Egypt Leasehold in the sense of the limited taking over of the use of lan…

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[German version] In Rome being eligible to marry ( conubium) was a prerequisite for a legally valid marriage. Both partners had to have the conubium: Conubium est uxoris iure ducendae facultas. Conubium habent cives Romani cum civibus Romanis: cum Latinis autem et peregrinis ita, si concessum sit. Cum servis nullum est conubium…

[German version] Suicide, from neo-Latin suicidium ('self-killing'), a parallel formation on homicidium , was a subject of lively intellectual debate in Greek and Roman Antiquity: in schematic comparison it can be said that the followers of and successors to Plato, as well as Aristotle [6] and Neo-Platonism, condemned suicide, whereas some Sophists, and the Cynics (Cynicism) e…

[German version] The institution of the law court (LC) has existed from the beginning of state control in antiquity. It is no longer possible to deduce whether and where a phase of arbitration preceded it. In the documents of the Ancient Orient LCs are attested on many occasions [1; 2; 3]. The respective city prince or king was probably also the master of the court although in Mesopotamia there was also local jurisdiction (i.e. within certain groups) [2]. The scribes were suited for work as judg…

[German version] The ‘Basilics’, after the Greek term basiliká (n.pl.: ‘imperial’; sc. law books), are a compilation in Greek of the most important parts of the   Corpus iuris (  Digesta and   Codex (II)Iustinianus, as well as extracts f…

[German version] in Roman court proceedings is the opposite of ‘condemnation’ (  condemnatio ). In civil proceedings the formula in which the praetors set down the programme for the iudex ends stereotypically with the judicial command ... condemnato. Si non paret, absolvito. Both absolutio and condemnatio were final and absolute, in other words the decision -- apart from the special case of   appellatio -- was irrevocable, the dispu…

[German version] (relations by marriage). Gai. Inst. 1,63 speaks of adfinitas in connection with the statement: Item (scil. uxorem ducere non licet) eam, quae nobis quondam socrus, aut nurus, aut priuigna, aut nouerca fuit. According to this in classical Roman law (possibly since Augustus' marriage legislation) marriage to mother-in-law, daughter-in-law, stepdaughter and stepmother is forbidden. This impediment to…

[German version] The Digests (Title 47,13) label cases of a forced granting of benefits to an officeholder as concussio (blackmail). Possibly, this is a further development of the reclamation procedure (  repetundarum crimen ). Punishable behaviour in office due to concussio was not prosecuted by a iudicium publicum but by extraordinaria   cognitio . Therefore, it was probably only considered an independent offence in the Imperial period (2nd cent. AD). The sources present pretending a (higher) official authority, orders of a superior and threats of an unfounded suit as means of concu…

[German version] I. General The most important foundations of later European conceptions of law were laid in OT Judaic law, in Greek law as practical counterpart to the beginnings of philosophical reflection on justice ( Pre-Socratics; Justice), and above all in Roman law as the defining authority for the development of secular European jurisprudence since the late Middle Ages ( Reception). Law always com…

[German version] A. Ancient Near East There is evidence of personal (corporal) liability through surety (especially standing surety for another, rarely for oneself) as a means of guaranteeing a contract in Mesopotamian cuneiform texts from the mid-3rd millennium BC [2. 253] into the Hellenistic period [3. 64-69], using different terminologies and in different forms. The …

[German version] From a statement by the Roman jurist, Paul (Dig. 50,16,144) the meaning of paelex (also pelex, pellex, different in Greek pallakḗ ) is that of a female partner to whom one is not married (i.e not uxor, Marriage III.C.). The legal status of paelex was treated in Roman law mainly in the context of …

[German version] (literally 'that which is written down'), in the field of law, denoted all Roman documents, and (as literacy increased) from the Principate, but esp. in late antiquity, e.g. the testament, the note of hand ( cheirógraphon ), generally the contract, but also a legal opinion or a legal ruling, provided that these were given in writing. In a…

[German version] The actus contrarius of a   confarreatio , which dissolved a marriage joined in this form and followed the same ceremony. At the same time it effected the termination of the (former) husband's spousal powers (  manus ). Schiemann, Gottfried (Tübingen) Bibliography 1 W. Kunkel, s.v. matrimonium, RE 14, 2277 2 Treggiari, 24.

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[German version] In Roman law a permanent union between man and woman without affectio maritalis, i.e. without the intention of both parties of permanently entering a legal bond for forming a household, procreating and raising children. Since the marital laws of Augustus, the concubinatus increasingly became a form of living together if marriage was prohibited. Thus, senators and their descendants were prohibited under the …

[German version] I. Ancient Orient …