Page:Roman Constitutional History, 753-44 B.C..djvu/32

18 criminal cases, but investigated crimes, especially murder (parricidium), and tracked the guilty parties.

One or two special judges might be appointed by the king to try a case of high treason or a similar crime (hence called duoviri perduellionis), and one of them conducted the trial and passed judgment. If the defendant was found guilty and was granted an appeal by the king, the judge prosecuted him before the assembly of curies.

Colleges of Priests. — Several colleges of priests assisted the king and performed important public functions. They were naturally more permanent and independent than his lay deputies.

The three pontiffs (pontifices), later six, formed a college of experts that had charge of the calendar with its festivals and its classification of days as lawful (fasti) and unlawful (nefasti) for judicial and political transactions.

The college of three augurs (augures), afterward six, consisted of men who were skillful in interpreting the significance of lightning, the flight of birds, and other signs indicating the will of the gods.

It was the duty of the college of twenty fetials (fetiales) to perform and transmit various religious ceremonies in connection with treaties, declarations of war, and other international transactions.

During the reign of the last king a college of two priests (duoviri sacris faciundis) was established to preserve and interpret the Sibylline books.