Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 13.djvu/143

 ROMAN.] INSCRIPTIONS 131 (or similar stones), and containing remedies against diseases of the eyes, to be stamped on the glass bowls in which such remedies were sold, or on the medicaments themselves (see Grotet end, Die Stcmpcl dcr romischcn Augcnarzte gcsammcU und crkldrt, Gottingen, 1867 ; since its publication many new examples have come to light). IV. The other great class of inscriptions above referred to, the instrumcnta or leges, the laws, deeds, &c., preserved generally on metal and stone, from the nature of the case have to be considered chiefly with regard to their contents ; their form is not regulated by such constant rules as that of the tituH, so far as may be inferred from the state of completeness in which they have been preserved. The rules for each special class therefore, though, generally speaking, maintained as was to be expected of Roman institutions with remarkable steadiness from the earliest times down to a late period, must be based upon a comprehensive view of all the examples, including those preserved by ancient writers, and not in the monumental form. These documents are, as a rule, incised on bronze plates (only some private acts are preserved on wood and lead), and therefore have their peculiar form of writing, abbreviation, interpunction, &c., as has been already explained. A complete collection of these monuments, although projected by many workers in the field of Roman jurisprudence from Antonius Augustinus downwards, has not yet been made. The older Roman laws are now collected, in trustworthy texts, in the Corpus, vol. i. ; of the documents belonging to the later period a very compre hensive though not quite complete sylloge is given in the late lamented C. G. Brims s Fontcs juris Romani antiqui (Tubingen, 4th ed., 1879). 1. Among the earliest occasions for committing to writing agree ments, which may be supposed to have been originally verbal only, must certainly be reckoned international transactions (leges feeder is orfvedera). At the head of the prose records written in the Latin language we find the treaties of alliance of Tullus Hostilius with the Sabini (Dionysius Halic., iii. 33), of Servius Tullius with the Latini (Dionysius, iv. 26 ; Festus, p. 169 ; this was, partly, at the same time, as will afterwards appear, the oldest document of the sacred class), of the second Tarquinius with Gabii (Dionysius, iv. 58 : Festus, cpit., p. 56). They are followed, in the oldest re publican period, by the celebrated fcedcra with Carthage, so much discussed of late ; by the pacts of Sp. Cassius Vecellinus with the Latini of the year 261 (493 B c.), which Cicero seems to have seen still in i& forum behind the rostra, written on a bronze column (Pro Balbo, 23, 53 ; see also Livy, ii. 33 ; Festus, p. 166 ; and Momm- sen s Romischc Forschuugen, ii. p. 153 sq.) ; and by the fosdus Ardeatinum of 310 (444 B.C.) mentioned by Livy (iv. 7). Of all these documents nothing has been preserved in an authentic form, save some few words quoted from them by the ancient grammarians. Of onefwdus only is there a fragment still in existence, relating to the Oscan civitas libcra Bantia (C. I. L., i. 197) ; it was drawn up between 621 and 631 (133 and 123 B.C.), and contains the dausula of the fcedus, which was written in Latin and in Oscan. On account of this peculiar circumstance, the document gave occasion to Klenze, and afterwards to Mommsen, to resume (for the sake of Roman jurisprudence, in the first instance) inquiry into the Oscan and other Italian dialects. Some other Roman fcedcra are preserved only in Greek, e.g., that with the Jews of the year 594 (160 B.C.) (Josephus, Ant., xii. 6, 10). Some others, made with the same nation between 610 and 615 (144 and 139 B.C.) (Jos., Ant., xiii. 5, 6, and 7, 8), are mentioned in an abridged form only (see Mendelssohn, &quot;Senati consulta Romanorum qure sunt in Josephi antiquitatibus,&quot; &c., in the Ada Rocict. Philol. Lips., vol. v., 1875, p. 87 sq., and compare PJieinischcs Museum fur Pliilologic, vol. xxx., 1875, p. 118 sq., xxxii., 1877, p. 249; Ritschl s Opuscula, vol. v. p. 99 sq. ; Mommsen, Hermes, vol. ix., 1874, p. 281 sq.; Niese, Jfermcs, vol. xi., 1876, p. 466 sq.), or given in that of a scnatus consuHum, to which they must formally be ascribed. Amongst the fcedcra may be reckoned also the curious oath, sworn, perhaps, according to a general rule obtaining for all civitales feedcratse, by the citizens of a Lusitanian oppidum, Aritium, to Gains C;esar on his accession to the throne in A.D. 37 (C. I. L., ii. 172; Wil. 2839). Closely related to the fcedcra are the pacts between connnunities and private individuals, respecting pal.ronntus or hospiiium (tabula pntronci.tus ct hospilii, also, when in small portable form, tcsscrie hospitalcs), of which many specimens from the end of the republic down to a late period of the empire have been preserved (see Gazzera, Memoric dell Academia di Torino, vol. xxxv., 1831, p. 1 s?.,and Mommsen, Romischc Forschungen, i. p. 341 sq.). There is at present no complete collection of these ; for since Gazzcra s time many new ones have been found. Of the numerous examples scattered through the different volumes of the Corpus may be quoted the tessera Fundana, containing the pact of hospitality be tween the community of Fundi and a certain Ti. Claudius (who cannot, with certainty, be identified), the oldest hitherto known, in^ the form of a bronze fish (C. I. L., i. 532; Henz. 7000; Wil. 2849) ; the tabula of the pagus Gurzensium in Africa, delivering the patronate to L. Domitius Ahenobarbus, Nero s grandfather, in 742 (12 B.C.), in the afterwards solemn form of a tabclla fastigata,, to be fixed in the atrium of the person honoured (Orel. 3693 ; Wil. 2850) ; that of the civitas Palantina with a pere- grimis named Acccs Licirni of the year 752 (2 B.C.) (Ephcm. cpigr., i. 141; Hermes, v., 1871, p. 371 sq.); that of Lacilbula, in Spain, with one Q. Marius Balbus, of 5 A.D. (C. I. L., ii. 1393) ; that of the Bocchoritani on the island of Majorca, of 6 A. p. (C. I. L., ii. 3695 ; Wil. 2851) ; the four relating to C. Silius Aviola, dating from 27 to 28 A.D., all found at Brescia (C. I. L., v. 4919-4922) ; that of the colonia Julia Aug. legionis vii. Tupusuctu, in Africa, with the imperial legate Q. Julius Sccundus, of 55 A.D. (C. I. L., viii. 8837 ; Wil. 2851) ; that of two gcntilitates, the Dcsonci and Tridiavi, of the gens of the Zixlse, in Spain, now in the Museum of Berlin, which contains an older act of the year 27, and another more recent of the year 127 A.D. (C. I. L., ii. 2633; Orel. 156) ; that of the rcspublica Pompelonensis (Pampluna in Spain) of 185 A.D. (C. I. L., ii. 2960; Wil. 2854); that of the Segisamonenses, in Spain, of 239 A. D., now in the museum at Burgos (Ephcm. cpigr. , ii. 322); that of tlicfabri subidiani (i.e., subaediani, qni sub rede consistunt) of Cordova, of 348 A.D. (C. I. L., ii. 2211 ; Wil. 2861); and, in addition to many others, those found together at Rome, on the site of the palace of Q. Aradius Valerius Proculus, and belonging to him and other members of his family, from divers African cities, and executed in 321 and 322 A.D. (C. I. L., vi~. 1684 -88 ; Orel. 1079, 3058). 2. Hardly inferior in antiquity, and of superior value, are the remains of laws in the stricter sense of the word (leges and plcbi- scita), preserved to us in the originals, although unfortunately only in fragments more or less extensive. Of those laws the oldest and most important are the lex Acilia (for so it is in all probability to be styled) rcpctundarum of the year 631 (C. I. L., i. 198), which is incised on a bronze table about 2 metres broad, in 90 lines of about 200 to 240 letters each, and therefore extremely inconvenient to read, and the lex agraria of 643 (111 B.C.), written on the reverse of the table of the Acilia, abrogated shortly afterwards (C. I. L., i. 200) ; this is the third of the celebrated laws of C. Gracchus bear ing upon the division of public lands. Then follow the lex Cornelia de viginti quscstoribus, a fragment of Sulla s legislation, the eighth table only, of the whole set, being preserved (C. I. L., i. 202) ; the plcbiscitum dc Thcrmcnsibus, on the autonomy of Ter- messus in Pisidia, proposed by the tribuni plcbis, in 682 (72 B.C.), one of four or five large bronze plates (C. I. L., i. 204) ; the lex Rubria de civitate GalUse, cisalpinse, of 705 (49 B.C.), written in a new and more convenient form (belonging as it does to Ca?sar s legislation), in two columns, with numbered divisions, being the fourth out of an unknown number of plates (C. I. L., i. 205) ; the lex Julia municipalis, or, from the place where it was found, the tabula} Heraclecnscs of 709 (45 B.C.), written on the reverse of the much older Greek law of that community, preserved partly at Naples, partly in the British Museum (C. I.L., i. 206), also a fragment of Caesar s general municipal institutions ; it contains a curious passage relating to the public promulgation of laws (v. 15). These are the laws of the Roman republic preserved in important fragments ; some minor ones (brought together in C. I. L., i. 207-211) may be left out of account here. In the imperial age, laws in general were replaced by scnatus consulta, or by imperial decrees. It was also in the form of a scnatus consultum that the leges de iinpcrio, on the accession of the emperors, seem to have been promulgated. An example of such a law, preserved in part on a bronze tablet found at Koine, is the lex dc impcrio Vcspasiani (C.I.L.,vi. 930; Orel. vol. i. p. 567). There is, besides, one special category of imperial constitutions which continued to be named leges, viz., the constitutions given by the emperors to the divers classes of civitatcs, based upon the ancient traditional rules of government applied to Rome itself as well as to the colonix and municipia. Of this sort of leges some very valuable specimens have come from Spanish soil, viz., the lex colonise, Julise, Genctivu. Urbanorum sive Ursonis (now Osuna), given to that colony by Ca sar in 710 (44 B.C.), but incised, with some alterations, in the time of Vespasian, of which three bronze tables out of a much larger number remain (Hiibncr and Mommsen, Ephcm. cpigr., ii. p. 150 sq. and 221 sq. ) ; the lex Salpcnsana and the lex Malacitana, given to these two municipia, by Domitian, between 81 and 84 A.D., each on a large bronze plate, written respectively in two and in five columns, with the single chapters numbered and rubricated (C. I. L., ii. 1963, 1964, compare Mommsen, &quot;Die Stadtrcchtc der ateinischcn Gemeinden Salpensa und Malacca in der Provinz Bretica,&quot; in the Abhandlungcn dcr sdchsischcn Gcscllschaft dcr IVisscnsclwflcn, pJtihl.-histor. Classc, vol. iii., 1857, p. 363 sq.) ; the lex metal. Ii Vipasccnsis, given, with all probability, by one of the three Flavii, as a constitution to a&quot; mining district of southern Portugal, one bronze plate numbered iii. three or more, therefore, being lost (see Hiibncr, Eplicm. cpigr., iii. p. 165 sq. and, for a popular account, the Deutsche Rundschau, August 1877, p. 196 sq.). The so-called military diplomas, although in certain respects nearly related to the leges of the later period, are better placed along with the imperial decrees.