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Agrarian laws
(2,037 words)
[German version] (
Leges agrariae). Since the beginning of the Roman conquest of Italy, the record reports the confiscation of defeated people's lands. Such land initially became
ager publicus populi Romani and its use the subject of political conflicts. The earliest preserved attempt at a
lex agraria is Sp. Cassius' application in 486 BC to have the confiscated lands of the Hernici distributed (Liv. 2,41), an application whose historicity is doubted in scholarship. However, disputes over land use were undoubtedly a major theme in the histo…
Source:
Brill’s New Pauly
Money, money economy
(6,610 words)
[German version] I. Ancient Orient and Egypt As early as the beginning of the 3rd millennium BC metals (copper and silver, later also tin and gold) fulfilled monetary functions as a medium of exchange, a means of payment for religious, legal or other liabilities, a measure of value and a means of storing wealth. Until the 1st millennium fungible goods, primarily corn, also served as a medium of exchange and measure of value. Economies in the Near East and Egypt were characterised by subsistence production, self-sufficient palace and
oîkos economies. The need for goods or services w…
Source:
Brill’s New Pauly
Aerarius
(382 words)
[German version] [1] Criminal punishment The censors were permitted to repossess the horse of an
eques, which was financed with public means, as a criminal punishment. Furthermore, they could also
tribu movere, aerarium facere (or
aerarium relinquere, and also
in aerarios referre). The sources are not consistently clear (ThLL 1, 1055) but the
lex repetundarum (Roman Statutes, no. 1) 1,28 and the
lex Latina Tabulae Bantinae (Roman Statutes, no. 7) 1,6 together with literary sources permit the conclusion that
tribu movere and
aerarium facere had identical meanings or, when the t…
Source:
Brill’s New Pauly
Aerarium
(366 words)
[German version] The
aerarium populi Romani was the treasure of the Roman people, which was kept in the Saturnus temple at the Forum Romanum. The name derives from the fact that the liquid wealth of the
res publica originally only consisted of
aes, bronze, but not gold and silver. From an early, albeit uncertain time, the
aerarium populi Romani was subject to the
quaestores urbani, though their powers were restricted to administration; in the Republican period the power to dispose of the monies in the
aerarium rested with the Senate alone. Roman municipia and colonies also had an
aerarium (T…
Source:
Brill’s New Pauly
Nobiles
(1,840 words)
[German version] A. Patricians and Nobility It was generally assumed during the late Roman Republic that under the Monarchy and the early Republic political and religious power rested in the hands of a series of patrician
gentes (
gens ). The origins of the patrician class were traced back to Romulus (Liv. 1,8,7). The patrician
gentes sometimes belonged to one family, but more frequently to several, not necessarily closely related families. Some of the
gentes derived their descent from the Trojans who according to legend settled in Latium under the leadership of Aenea…
Source:
Brill’s New Pauly
Aes equestre
(210 words)
[German version] According to Livy (1,43,9), Servius Tullius provided that the
res publica would give an
eques, a horseman, money for the purchase of a horse and that the property of wealthy widows would be used for the maintenance of horses. According to Plutarch, Camillus used the property of wealthy orphans in particular for purchasing horses (Camillus 2). Gaius (4,27) considered it a practice of the past that a horseman had the right to demand security from those paying for the horse and its maintenance. He also related the name of two institutions, the
aes equestre and the
aes hordiariu…
Source:
Brill’s New Pauly
Ager publicus
(596 words)
[German version] It is possible that there was already an
ager publicus (AP), public land, on Rome's territory in the city's early period. However, the largest part of the
AP was created through confiscation of defeated peoples' territories inside and outside of Italy and of royal lands such as the
Attalici agri in the former kingdom of Pergamum. The
ager publicus populi Romani was used for some time to varying degrees for equally divided assignations, the foundation of Roman and Latin colonies in conquered territories and the distribution of land to the p…
Source:
Brill’s New Pauly
Debt, Debt redemption
(2,856 words)
[German version] I. Ancient Orient Debt incurred by the population which lived on agriculture is a general phenomenon in agrarian societies. It ultimately led to debt bondage, thus threatening the social equilibrium. Debt redemption by sovereign decree was a common means of reducing or eliminating the consequences of debt, i.e. of restoring ‘justice in the land’. Instances of debt redemption are well attested in Mesopotamia from the 3rd millennium BC, but more especially between the 20th and 17th cen…
Source:
Brill’s New Pauly