Search

[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. In analog…

[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 mark…

[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 deliberately erased in ancie…

[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 for the people of Iguvium and individual families were described. Tablets VI and VII repeat the specifications of Tablet I, in more detail and in the Latin alphabet, and are therefore probably the most recent parts. The tablets are the most important source of information on the Umbrian language (Oscan-Umbrian) and religion. Galsterer, Har…

[German version] (sc. pars). The quadragesima (τεσσαρακοστή/ tessarakostḗ, 'one fortieth') was a toll at the rate of 21/2…

[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 …

[German version] Fragments of a bronze tablet, inscribed on both si…

[German version] Municipal law from the time of Domitian (end of the 1st cent. AD) for the Latin municipium Flavium Malacitanum, modern Málaga in southern Spain, of which a bronze tablet was found in 1861 with chs. 51-69 together with the lex Salpensana (today in the Archaeological National Museum of Madrid). The text of chs. 59-69 is identical, with several differences, to that of the corresponding chs. in the lex Irnitana ; this would probably also apply to the rest of the law. Galsterer, Hartmut (Bonn) Bibliography CIL II 1964 ILS 6089 H. Freis, Histor. Inschr. zur röm. Kaiserzeit, 1…

[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 …

[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 …

[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 comp…

[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 relationship of the civitas with Rome as civitas foederata (community tied to Rome in a contract, usually in Italy, with foedus aequum or iniquum) or as a civitas sine foedere (community without contract, usually in the provinces,   foedus ), or according to financial obligations that resulted from a contract: stipendiaria (taxed), libera (with its own administration), immunis (tax-free). Galsterer, Hartmut (Bonn) [German version] B. Citizenship Membership in a Roman  tribus and -- at least originally -- a name of Roman type were characteristic.  Citizenship was acquired by birth from (free) parents possessing   conubium , by manumission by…

[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 …

[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…

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…

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 …

[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…