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[German version] (excessive claim, cf. Cod. Iust. 3,10) - or, more commonly, plus petere - is a figure of Roman law intimately related to the artful construction of the formula in the Roman formula procedure. The pluspetitio led to sanctions or reactions in procedural law, which could range from loss of a case to corrective action (as today with the award of legal costs) within a legal dispute. According to Gaius [2] (Inst. 4,53ff.; 68), classical Roman law of the 1st-3rd cents. AD distinguished between four manifestations of the pluspetitio: re, tempore, loco, causa (factual, temporal,…

[German version] The attestation of a legal transaction (for its validity) or another action (as evidence in a trial) according to Roman law. The enforceability of legal positions has always been dependent on the possibility of proving the conditions for their coming into existence. The importance of witnesses for criminal proceedings is evident; however, it was no less so for civil trials. Although documentary evidence surpassed the evidence of witnesses for the latter branch of law toward the en…

[German version] ‘Laying on hand’ occurs twice in connection with the most ancient type of Roman trial, the legis actio : first, anyone wishing to accuse another may, if the defendant refuses to attend, force him to appear before the praetor by manus iniectio, i.e. the use of force. The defendant may escape only by means of a vindex (a person who guarantees the appearance of the defendant at a fixed later date; see lex XII tab. 1-4). The second context for this a measure of compulsion - also involving a vindex - was that of the enforcement of a confirmed debt ( legis actio per manus iniectionem, lex X…

[German version] means the affirming repetition of a formal contractual declaration by the magistrate. It is already attested as such by Gell. NA 17,2,10 for Twelve Tables proceedings. Macrob. Sat. 1,16,14 refers to do, dico, addico ( tria verba sollemnia) as the words probably ceremoniously and formally pronounced by the magistrate during the most important steps in conducting the case, which were, moreover, only permissible on dies fasti (Varro, Ling. 6,30). The magistrate's affirmation was probably the most constitutive law-creating act, occurring for instance in in iure cess…

[German version] can in a legal context be any communication made to another person, orally or in writing, in pursuit of a legal objective. The person making the declaration and the person receiving it do not have to be private individuals but can also be office-holders or even the curule aediles' edict (Dig. 21,1,37). If such a communication is addressed to someone who is absent, it is termed detestatio (Dig. 50,39,2). The denuntiatio can have an informative or communicative character, as for example the requisite (in late antiquity, threefold) notification of a pr…

[German version] Arbitration, unlike criminal and civil jurisdiction, which operate with the force of the state, is invoked voluntarily by the disputing parties. It has neither been proven nor completely refuted that because of this lack of state influence arbitration represents the beginning of all jurisdiction (thus for Rome esp. [1]). In Roman sources in any case arbitration has an independent position alongside all three types of state trial (  ordo). There was also arbitration already in Greece (see   diaitētai [1]). The Roman compromissum (agreement of the parties to subm…

[German version] A central concept of Roman  procedural law, it appears in several different senses: in the wider sense for the whole process, in the narrower sense (esp. in the context of the legis actio and formulary procedure which are divided into different procedural stages) for the last stage which took place before the judge (  iudex ). Upon transition to the cognitio procedure (  cognitio ) and concomitant elimination of the procedural stages, iudicium then only referred to the whole process for which the word processus has been in habitual usage since the MA. Additional …

[German version] In general civil law the specific designation of a thing or person (Dig. 6,1,6). This term lies at the origin of the interpretative formula falsa demonstratio non nocet (‘a wrong expression does not affect the matter's validity’), which was used by the Romans mainly when interpreting a will (Inst. Ius. 2,20,30) and which is still current today. In the context of civil proceedings demonstratio, set out at the beginning of a large number of legal arguments, refers to the concise exposition of the circumstances of the disputed issue (Gai. Inst. …

[German version] is occasionally used generally for a demand or a request in Roman law as a synonym of petitio . For a Roman formula lawsuit in the 3rd cent. AD (in the context of the edict title de postulando; cf. also Cod. Iust. 2,6) Ulpian defines postulare as desiderium suum vel amici sui in iure ... exponere: vel alterius desiderio contradicere ('to expound to the court one's own or a friend's request or to contradict somebody else's request', Dig. 3,1,1,2). By a postulatio actionis a plaintiff requested a praetor to allow the action on which he had agreed with the accused by way of an editio …

[German version] In Roman law, satisdatio (the giving of a security) constituted a special form of the cautio (warranty). Anyone obliged to the satisdatio had to provide a guarantor at regular intervals (Dig. 2,8,1). The guarantor had to be idoneus (“fit”, i.e. solvent); this could be established by an arbiter (a judge with administrative discretion) (Dig. 2,8,9 and 10 pr). It was also a fundamental requirement that the bondsman was of the same legal status as the party furnishing security. Cases in which a satisdatio could be arranged by the praetor or where it was even prescribed ipso ju…

[German version] A lawsuit brought before the praetor concerning credited money or some other res certa could be concluded before the   litis contestatio if the plaintiff made the defendant take an oath on the validity of the claim involved in the suit. The defendant hereupon had the choice of paying or denying the claim; the latter is the abiuratio (Isid. Orig. 5,26,21). If he abjured, the plaintiff's   actio was denied; sometimes instead of this the defendant was granted an exceptio iurisiurandi (Dig. 12,2,9 pr.), if, for instance, the existence and content of the oath gave…

[German version] The PB (confiscation of goods) was practiced at Rome as a consequence of a conviction from time immemorial (cf. Liv. 2,5,2; 2,8,2; 3,55,7). The PB originally surrendered the culprit and his assets as a consecratio (dedication) to the deity in the sense of a proscription (probably destruction of belongings, perhaps also transfer to temple property). In the later Republican period (probably from 169 BC, cf. Liv. 43,16,10), it developed into a (mandatory) supplementary punishment in case of convict…

[German version] A term adopted into contemporary languages in the meaning of ‘appeal against a sentence’, appellatio in Rome originally referred only to prevention by magisterial decree. An intercessory action of this kind connects the areas of meaning of appellatio and   provocatio , (Cic. Quinct. 65; Liv. 3,563; Plin. HN 6,90). They caused immediate and irrevocable discontinuance of the current process or action as well as, in some cases, referral to the person invoked or a new decision by him. In probably the most …

[German version] Either the payment order pronounced in a civil law trial (Dig. 2,12,6: iudicatum facere vel solvere), or the entire judgement; the latter primarily in the expression res iudicata; e.g. Dig. 42,1,1: res iudicata dicitur, quae finem controversiarum pronuntiatione iudicis accipit: quod vel condemnatione vel absolutione contingit (‘ res iudicata is the end of the proceeding that has been brought about by the judgement, which is either sentencing or acquittal’). In the masculine form iudicatus means a sentenced person, e.g. Dig. 42,2,1: confessus pro iudicato est (‘wh…

[German version] In most of the lawsuit formulae reported by Gaius (but also by others, e.g. Dig. 46,4,18,1) the blanket name Aulus Agerius (= is qui agit), stands for the plaintiff, where the actual name is to be inserted in the specific case (expressly the l. Rubria: CIL I 205), while the defendant is called Numerius Negidius (= is a quo numeratio postulatur et qui negat). However, all four names can be applicable in individual cases.  Formula Paulus, Christoph Georg (Berlin) Bibliography W. Kunkel, Röm. Rechtsgesch., 91980, 84.

[German version] Literally, ‘one who dispenses justice’, i.e. ‘judge’. Usually, this means the individual judge in Roman law ( iudex privatus; iudex unus) who in a separate stage of the proceeding that usually ended a legal dispute ( apud iudicem) conducts the deliberation of the evidence and passes a judgement roughly suggested by the  praetor in the first proceeding stage ( in iure,   ius ). While the term iudex was already exchangeable with that of   arbiter at the time of the Law of the Twelve Tables (5th cent. BC), the   recuperatores and   centumviri constitute sep…

[German version] From re-capere, literally 'to obtain back', for which purpose the recuperatores were originally appointed in support of Roman citizens within the framework of international legal relationships (Fest. 342 L.: reciperatio): they were meant to help the citizens get back what they had lost (probably above all in war) or had had illegally taken away from them. They then also came to a decision in the repetundae process ( repetundarum crimen ), in which it was a matter of the return of goods which the Roman magistrates had extorted in o…

[German version] The term editio is derived from the verb edere (‘to present, to show, to announce’) and has several meanings within the legal realm: (1) The editio actionis (Dig. 2,13) refers to the announcement required, in order for a trial to be sub judice in the formulary procedure, from the plaintiff towards the defendant, stating the type of charge(-formula) the plaintiff intends to initiate against the defendant. As long as the defendant accepts the formula ( accipere iudicium), the   litis contestatio (attestation of conflict) is established. For a…

[German version] [1] Aphorism, v. Gnome [1] II A; Proverbs Aphorism, v. Gnome [1] II A; Proverbs Paulus, Christoph Georg (Berlin) [German version] [2] Legal verdict Literally etymologically derived from the root sin, the sense of something uttered; in Roman legal terminology, e.g. the sense of a private legal action (cf. e.g. Dig. 28,1,1 on a testament) or a law (cf. Dig. 23,2,44,5). Sententia in particular meant the verdict, in civil or criminal law, delivered by a judge ( iudex , arbiter ). In this sense, sententia was already used for the process of the legis actio …

[German version] is the formalised notice of a witness, associated with a tweak of the ear (Plin. HN 11,103), before the permitted use of force by the plaintiff against a defendant who does not comply with the in ius vocatio and does not offer any vindex. Antestatio is attested for the Twelve Tables (1. 1); it became superfluous, and yet was apparently retained, on introduction of the standard procedural   litis denuntiatio . -- Antestatus is a mancipatio witness, CIL 6.10239.  Vocatio in ius;  Denuntiatio Paulus, Christoph Georg (Berlin) Bibliography Wieacker, RRG, 448.