Dictionary
JULIANUS	78.13%
Salvius. An eminent Roman jurist, born in Africa, who lived in the days of Hadrian. Besides many original works which were long held in high esteem, he compiled at the command of the emperor in 131 A.D., a systematic collection of Edicts of the Praetors, beginning with the republican time (edictum perpetuum). This was the first scientific collection of Roman legal documents. Numerous fragments of his works are quoted in the Digest. Cp. CORPUS JURIS CIVILIS (2).
TRIBONIANUS	72.75%
Deprecated: Function split() is deprecated in /www/www-ccat/data/classics/myth/php/tools/dictionary.php on line 64 A celebrated Roman jurist of Side in Pamphylia, who was at first an advocate, and afterwards held a high official position under Justinian, and, in conjunction with the most distinguished lawyers of his time, made a code of Roman law. (See CORPUS IURIS CIVILIS.)
CORPUS IURIS CIVILIS	72.75%
The name of the great collection of authorities on Roman law, made by the lawyer Tribonianus, of Side in Pamphylia at the instance of the Eastern Emperor Justinian (527-565 A.D.). To this collection we owe the preservation of the treasures of the ancient jurisprudence, which must certainly otherwise have been lost. The Corpus Iuris consists of four parts: (1) Codex Iustinianeus, called repititoe, proelectionis, as being the revised edition of a code now lost, but which had appeared in 529. This was published in 534, and contains in twelve books the imperial law (ius principale), or the constitutiones of the emperors since Hadrian. (2) Pandectoe, or Digesta. The law of the jurists (ius vetus). These, published A.D. 533, are extracts from the works of thirty-nine ancient jurists, arranged in fifty books, according to subjects. (3) Institutiones. A handbook of jurisprudence, founded mostly upon Gaius, and published in the same year. (4) Novelloe (constitutiones), or supplementary ordinances of Justinian, mostly in Greek. These are preserved only in private collections of various compass, one of which, the Authenticum or Liber Authenticorum, was recognised as the authorized text, and gives the Greek rescripts in a Latin version.
PAPINIANUS	51.50%
Deprecated: Function split() is deprecated in /www/www-ccat/data/classics/myth/php/tools/dictionary.php on line 64 The most important among the Roman jurists; born about 140 A.D., a contemporary and friend of the emperor Septimius Severus, whom he accompanied on his expedition to Britain in the capacity of praefectus praetorio. Severus, on his deathbed at York, left to him the guardianship of his sons Geta and Caracalla; yet the latter caused Papinianus to be put to death in the next year, 212, on the day after the murder of his brother Geta. Of all his works, the thirty-seven books of Quaestiones (legal questions), and the nineteen books of Responsa (legal decisions) were considered the most important. Till the time of Justinian these formed the nucleus of that part of jurisprudence which was connected with the explanation of the original authorities on Roman law. We only possess fragments of them, in the form of numerous excerpts in the "Digest." (See CORPUS JURIS CIVILIS.)
COMPERENDINATIO	27.25%
[The Latin name for the postponement of a trial for a definite time by consent of both parties, each being bound to appear. To be distinguished from ampliatio, which seems to have meant an indefinite postponement, in consequence of uncertainty on the part of the jury.]
CALUMUNIA	21.96%
The Latin word for slander. It was technically applied to false accusations. The falsely accused person, if acquitted, had the right of accusing the prosecutor in his turn on the charge of calumnia before the same jury. In civil cases the penalty was a pecuniary fine in; criminal cases the calumniator lost his right to appear again as a prosecutor, and in early times was branded on the forehead with a K.
MUCIUS SCAEEVOLA	21.90%
(Quintus) was born of a family in which the pontificate and great legal learning had been handed down from father to son. He was a friend of the orator Crassus and his colleague in almost all offices, was made consul in B.C. 95, and murdered by the Marians in 85. A man of great integrity and wide culture, he combined a profound knowledge of the law with remarkable eloquence. He rendered great service by being the first to reduce the legal materials accumulated in the course of time to a consistent and classified system. This he did in his lost work, De Iure Civili, in eighteen volumes; it formed the basis for a methodical treatment of law. Among his pupils were Cicero and the lawyer Sulpicius Rufus (q.v.).
ANTISTIUS LABEO	20.67%
Deprecated: Function split() is deprecated in /www/www-ccat/data/classics/myth/php/tools/dictionary.php on line 64 A renowned jurist of Augustus' time, a man of wide scholarship and strict republican views, which lost him the emperor's favour. His writings on law amounted to 400 books, portions of which are preserved in the Pandects of Justinian's Corpus Iuris. Aiming at a progressive development of law, he became the founder of a school of lawyers named Proculians after his pupil Sempronius Proculians. See ATEIUS CAPITO.
PHILO	16.70%
ULPIANUS	15.98%
Next to Papinlanus the most celebrated among Roman jurists. He was born at Tyre about 170 A.D. He began his career in Rome under Septimius Severus as assessor of Papinianus; and, under Elagabalus and Alexander Severus, whose preceptor and guardian he had been, filled the office of a proefectus proetorio. During his tenure of this office he was murdered (228) before the eyes of the emperor by the praetorians, whom he had exasperated by the strictness of his discipline. His two chief works, on the praetorian law, Ad Edictum, in 83 books, and on the civil law (Ad Sabinum) in 51 books, were held in high esteem, and formed the foundation of the Pandects of Justinian's Corpus Iuris. Of this portion the extracts from his writings form a full third. Besides these excerpts we have a small part of his Regularum Liber Singularis and of his Institutions.
PRAECO	15.65%
The Latin term for a public crier, such as those who were employed in private life, especially at auctions. Their profession was eminently lucrative, but was not considered at all respectable. Similarly those employed by the State ranked as the most insignificant of its paid servants (see APPARITOR). Their duties were to summon the meetings of the people and the Senate, to command silence, to proclaim aloud the proposals under consideration, to announce the result of the individual votes, and also the final result; in legal proceedings, to cite the parties to the case, their counsel, and witnesses, to announce the close of the proceedings, and the jury's dismissal; to invite the people to funeral feasts and to games, and to assist at public auctions and other sales, etc., etc. Consuls, praetors, and censors had three decuries of such attendants; quaestors, and probably also tribunes and aediles, one. They also attended on extraordinary magistrates and on governors of provinces.
CENTUMVIRI	15.15%
Deprecated: Function split() is deprecated in /www/www-ccat/data/classics/myth/php/tools/dictionary.php on line 64 This was the title of the single jury for the trial of civil causes at Rome. In the republican age it consisted of 105 members, chosen from the tribes (three from each of the thirty-five). Under the Empire its number was increased to 180. It was divided into four sections (consilia), and exercised its jurisdiction in the name of the people, partly in sections, partly as a single collegium. It had to deal with questions of property, and particularly with those of inheritance. In the later years of the Republic it was presided over by men of quaestorian rank; but from the time of Augustus by a commission of ten (decem viri litibus iudicandis). The pleadings were oral, and the proceedings public. In earlier times they took place in the forum; under the Empire in a basilica. In the imperial age the centumviral courts were the only sphere in which an ambitious orator or lawyer could win distinction. The last mention of them is in 395 A.D. The peculiar symbol of the centumviral court was a hasta or spear (see HASTA).
PARIAN CHRONICLE	14.81%
A marble tablet found at Paros in 1627, now [among the Arundel Marbles in the University Galleries] at Oxford. It is written chiefly in the Attic, but partly in the Ionian dialect, and consists of ninety-three lines, some of which are no longer complete. It originally contained a number of dates of the political, but chiefly of the religious and literary, history of the Greeks, from the Athenian king Cecrops to the Athenian archon Diognetus, 264 B.C.; in its present condition, however, it only goes down to 354 B.C. All the dates are given according to Attic kings and archons, and the historical authorities on which it depends must have been Attic authors. The origin and aim of the tablet are unknown. [It was first published by Selden in 1628; it has since been printed by Boeckh (Corpus Inscr. Groec. ii, no. 2374), who considers that the leading authority followed is Phanias of Eresos, and also by C. Muller, Frag. Hist.
JURISPRUDENCE	14.28%
Deprecated: Function split() is deprecated in /www/www-ccat/data/classics/myth/php/tools/dictionary.php on line 64 Deprecated: Function split() is deprecated in /www/www-ccat/data/classics/myth/php/tools/dictionary.php on line 64 The science of law is the one branch of Roman literature which had a purely national development. From an early date there were definite legal ordinances in Rome, and shortly after the expulsion of the kings a collection of leges regiae was made by a certain Gaius Papirius. These consisted of archaic customary laws of a strongly sacerdotal character, and arbitrarily attributed to individual kings (known as the Ius Papirianum). However, the foundation of the collective legal life of the Romans was primarily the well known law of the Twelve Tables, B.C. 451-450. (See TWELVE TABLES.) This put an end to the want of a generally known law; for the knowledge of previous legal decisions, like the whole of the judicial procedure, had been hitherto kept in the exclusive possession of the patricians. The administration of the law remained as formerly in the hands of the patricians alone, for they kept from the plebeians all knowledge of the dies fasti and nefasti, i.e. the days on which legal proceedings might or might not be taken, as also the forms of pleading which were regularly employed (legis actiones). The latter were so highly important that the least infraction of them would involve the loss of the cause. This condition of things existed for a long time, until Appius Claudius Caecus drew up a calendar of the days on which causes could be pleaded, and a list of ihe form of pleading. These were made public about 304 B.C. by his secretary, Gnaeus Flavius, after whom they were then called Ius Flavianum. By these means a knowledge of the law became generally attainable. It soon had eminent representatives among the plebeians in the persons of Publius Sempronius Sophus and Tiberius Coruncanius. In ancient days, however, the work of the jurists was purely practical. It was considered an honourable thing for men learned in the law to allow people to consult them (consulere, hence iuris, or iure consulti) either in the Forum or at appointed hours in their own houses, and to give them legal advice (responsa). It was mainly by a kind of oral tradition that the knowledge of law was handed down, as the most eminent jurists allowed younger men to be present at these consultations as listeners (auditores or discipuli). The beginning of literary activity in this department, as in others, dates from the second Punic War. It begins with the earliest exposition of existing law. Sextus Aelius Catus published in 204 B.C. a work named Tripertita (from its being divided into three parts) or Ius Aelianum, which consisted of the text of the laws of the Twelve Tables together with interpretations, and the legal formulae for carrying on suits. From the middie of the 2nd century it became common to make collections of the responsa of eminent jurists, and to use them as a source of legal information. Among others, Marcus Porcius Cato, the son of Cato the Elder, made a collection of this kind. In some families knowledge of the law was in a measure hereditary, as in those of the Aelii, Porcii, Sulpicii, and Mucii. A member of the last family, the pontifex Quintus Milcius Scoevola (died B.C. 82), was the first who, with the aid of the formal precision of the Stoic philosophy, gave a scientific and systematic account of all existing law, in his work, De Iure Civili. Servius Sulpicius Rufus, the contemporary and friend of Cicero, further advanced this new and more methodical treatment of law by his numerous writings and by training up pupils, such as Aulus Ofilius and Publius Alfenus Varus. The former rendered great assistance to Caesar in his scheme for forming the whole of the Ius Civile into a single code. Besides these there were several eminent jurists at the close of the Republic: Gaius Trebatius Testa, Quintus Aelius Tubero, Gaius Aelius Gallus, and Aulus Cascellius. While under the Republic the learned jurist had hold an inferior position to the orator in influence and importance, there is no doubt that under the Empire public eloquence became subordinate, and the position of the jurists was the most coveted end influential in the State, especially when Augustus decreed that the opinions of jurists authorized by the head of the State were to have the validity of law. It was from the jurists as advisers of the emperor that all legislation now proceeded. They had access to all the highest offices of the court and of the State. Accordingly the men of the highest gifts and character betook themselves naturally to this profession, and even introduced into the laws an increased unity, consistency, and systematic order. Under Augustus two jurists were pre-eminent, Quintus Antistius Labeo and Gaius Ateius Capito, the founders of the two later schools, named, after their pupils Sempronius Proculiani and Masurius Sabinus, the Proculiani and Sabini respectively. Labeo sought to extend his professional knowledge, whilst Capito held fast to the traditions of former jurists. The first scientific collection of laws was made under Hadrian by the Sabinian lawyer Salvius Iulianus, with his Edictum Perpetuum, a classified collection of the praetorian edicts from the times of the Republic. (See EDICTUM.) Sextus Pomponius, his somewhat younger contemporary, composed amongst other things a history of the law till the time of Hadrian. Under the Antonines jurisprudence was able to claim a remarkable representative in the Asiatic Gaius, but it received its completion and conclusion in the first half of the 3rd century A.D., through Aemilius Papinianus, Domitius Ulpianus, and Iulius Paulus. After their time there were no jurists of great and original capacity. In the 4th century literary activity revived again, but confined itself to the collection of legal authorities, especially that of imperial ordinances. Thus the Codex Theodosianus, finished in A.D. 438, contains an official record of all the enactments decreed by the emperors from the time of Constantine. Under Justinian I (527-565 A.D.) the last and most complete Roman collection of laws was made, under the name of the Corpus Iuris Civilis (q.v.).
PROBOLE	12.61%
A motion for a judicial prosecution. In Attic legal procedure it was a particular kind of public indictment. In the first assembly of every prytany, on the archon's inquiring whether the people were satisfied with the conduct of the magistrates, any citizen might accuse a magistrate of official misconduct. If the assembly considered there was foundation for the charge, the magistrate was temporarily suspended or even absolutely deposed from his office, and a judicial prosecution was instituted. Even against a private citizen, especially for doing an injury to magistrates, or to sacred persons or things, for interrupting a festival, embezzling public money, or instituting a, vexatious prosecution, a complaint could be brought before the people in order to see whether they considered the case suitable for a judicial trial. [The most celebrated example of this procedure is the case of Demosthenes against Meidias for assaulting him in the discharge of public functions at the Dionysia.] However, this neither bound the man who laid the plaint to bring forward an actual indictment, nor the jury to follow in the formal trial the preliminary verdict of the people, although it would always influence them.
VERRIUS FLACCUS	11.78%
A Roman freedman, "who obtained renown chiefly by his method of teaching. To exercise the wits of his pupils, says Suetonius, he used to pit against each other those of the same age, give them a subject to write upon, and reward the winner with a prize, generally in the shape of a fine or rare copy of some ancient author" (Prof. Nettleship's Essays, p. 203). He educated the grandsons of Augustus and died under Tiberius. He devoted himself to literary and antiquarian studies resembling those of the learned Varro. Thus, he wrote books De Orthographia and Rerum Memoria Dignarum; but his most important work was entitled De Verborum Significatu. This may claim to be the first Latin lexicon ever written. It was arranged alphabetically; it gave interpretations of obsolete words, and explained the meaning of the oldest institutions of the State, including its religious customs, etc. We only possess fragments of an abridgment made by Festus (q.v.), and a further abridgment of the latter, dedicated to Charlemagne, by Paulus. A calendar of Roman festivals drawn up by him was set up in marble at Praeneste, near Rome; of this there are some fragments still preserved containing the months of January to April inclusive and December. These fragments are known as the Fasti Proenestini [Corpus Inscr. Lat. i, p. 311]. [In the library of Trinity College, Cambridge, there is a slab of stone bearing the name VERRIVS FLACCVS, probably the lexicographer's epitaph. See also Prof. Nettleship's Lectures and Essays, pp. 201-247.]
ADOPTION	11.00%
At Rome there were two kinds of adoption, both requiring the adopter to be a male and childless: Arrogatio and Adoption proper. The former could only take place where the person to be adopted was independent (sui juris), and his adopter had no prospect of male offspring; at the instance of the pontifex, and after full proof of admissibility, it had to be sanctioned by the comitia curiata. Adoption proper applied to those still under paternal rule (patria potestas), the father selling his son by formal muncipatio (q.v.) to the adopter, who then, the paternal power being thus abolished, claimed the son before the court as his own, and the father allowed him to be adjudged to him. By either transaction the person adopted passed completely over into the family and rank of the adopter, and naturally took his name in full, but with the addition of a second cognomen formed from his own former nomen gentile by the suffix -anus, e.g. Publius Cornelius Scipio Aemilianus (son of Lucius Aemilius Paullus). Women too could be adopted, but not arrogated; neither could they adopt. At the latter end of the Republic we find a testamentary Adoption in existence, which at first likewise produced a change of name, but not of status.
CONSILIUM	10.95%
Deprecated: Function split() is deprecated in /www/www-ccat/data/classics/myth/php/tools/dictionary.php on line 64 The Latin word for a council, or body of advisers. Such councils were called in, according to ancient custom, by the presiding magistrate in civil and criminal cases. Even in the family tribunals, which decided cases affecting the members of the gens, a consilium of kinsfolk was thought necessary. The custom was that the presiding Judge bound himself by tile decision of his freely chosen consilium, but took the responsibility himself. The expression consilium was afterwards transferred to the regular juries of the courts which decided civil and criminal cases (see CENTUMVIRI, JUDICES). The emperors, too, made a practice of inviting a consilium of friends to assist them in their judicial decisions. After the time of Hadrian, the members of the imperial consilium appear as regularly appointed and salaried officers, the Consiliarii Augusti. These were generally, though not exclusively, selected from the body of professional jurists. After the 4th century A.D. the word consistorium was substituted for consilium; meaning, originally, the council-chamber in the imperial palace.
DIOCLETIAN, EDICT OF	10.38%
[An edict published by the Emperor Diocletian about 303 A.D., directing those engaged in the sale of provisions not to exceed certain fixed prices in times of scarcity. It is preserved in an inscription in Greek and Latin on the outer wall of the cella of a temple at Stratonicea (Eski-hissar) in Caria. It states the price of many varieties of provisions, and these inform us of their relative value at the time. The provisions specified include not only the ordinary food of the people, but also a number of articles of luxury. Thus mention is made of several kinds of honey, of hams, sausages, salt and fresh-water fish, asparagus and beans, and even pernae Menapicae (Westphalian hams). At the time when the edict was published the denarius was obviously much reduced in value, that coin appearing as the equivalent of a single oyster. The inscription was first copied by Sherard in 1709; it has been elaborately edited by M. Waddington, with new fragments and a commentary, 1864; and by Mommsen in the third volume of the Corpus Inscriptionum Latindrum. Portions of the Greek copy and the Latin preamble were found at Plataea in 1888-9 during the explorations of the American School of Classical Archaeology. In 1890, during the excavations of the British School of Archaeology, several hundred lines of the Greek version of the decree were discovered at Megalopolis, including a list of pigments with their prices. It has been edited anew by Mommsen and Blumner, 1893. - J. E. S.]
CAESAR	9.10%
Julius Caesar was born in 102 or 100 B.C., and was assassinated on March 15th, B.C. 44. He was famous no less as an orator and writer than as a general and statesman. Endowed with extraordinary natural gifts, he received a careful education under the superintendence of his mother Aurelia. In B.C. 77 he came forward as the public accuser of Dolabella, and entered the lists against the most celebrated advocates of the day, Cotta and Hortensius. From that time his fame was established as that of an advocate of the first rank. The faculties of which he bad given evidence he cultivated to their highest point under the tuition of the rhetorician Molo in Rhodes, and attained such success, that his contemporaries regarded him as an orator second only to Cicero. Indeed, Cicero himself fully recognizes his genius, awarding especial praise to the elegance and purity of his Latin. Caesar, however, left but few speeches in a finished state, and these have not come down to us. A number of writings give evidence of the many-sidedness of his genius and literary activity, but these are also lost. There were poems, which never attained much reputation, including, besides boyish effusions, some verses on his journey to Spain in B.C. 46. A treatise on Latin accidence, dedicated to Cicero, and entitled De Analogia, was written during his march across the Alps to his army in Gaul. The Anticatones, composed in his Spanish camp before the battle of Munda in B.C. 45, was a reply to Cicero's panegyric on Cato of Utica. A treatise on astronomy, De Astris, had probably some connection with the reform of the calendar introduced by him, as Pontifex Maximus, in B.C. 45. His two great works have, however, survived. These are his Commentarii de Bello Gallico, 58-52 B.C., in seven books, and his Commentarii de Bello Civili, 49-48 B.C., in three books. The former was written down rapidly, at the end of 52 and begining of 51, in his winter quarters before Bibracte. The latter was probably composed in Spain after the conquest of the Pompeians in 45. The history of the Gallic War was completed after Caesar's death by Aulus Hirtius. This writer added an eighth book, which included the last rising of the Gauls in 51, and the events of the year 50 which preceded the Civil War. The book, as we now have it, is unfinished. There are three other anonymous books which continue the history of the Civil War. The Bellum Alexandrinum (War in Alexandria) is perhaps from the hand of Hirtius. The Bellum Africum (War in Africa) is written in a pompous and affected style [and has recently been assigned, but without sufficient reason, to Asinius Polliol. The Bellum Hispanum (Spanish War), is to be attributed to two different authors. Its style is rough, and shows that the writer was not an educated man.