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The Professiones of the Heraclean Tablet (Lex Iulia Municipalis)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 September 2012

Extract

The text relating to these declarations, though on the whole well preserved, suffers from an omission at the beginning of the first line which, while not greatly obscuring the sense, leaves the sentence grammatically somewhat in the air. In Bruns' recension it runs as follows: … ‘Quem h(ac) l(ege) ad co(n)s(ulem) profiterei oportebit sei is, quom eum profiterei oportebit, Romae non erit, tum quei eius negotia curabit, is eadem omnia, quae eum quoius negotia curabit, sei Romae esset, h. l. profiterei oporteret, item isdemque diebus ad cos. profitemino.’ The lack of concinnity between ‘Quem profiterei oportebit’ and ‘quei eius negotia curabit, is … profitemino’ is apparent. As this is not due to effacement of letters on the bronze, it must result from the graver's failure to reproduce accurately the copy before him. What stood in the archetype is almost certainly an introductory Quod in the sense of ‘as to the fact that,’ or ‘in the case of,’ the omission being due to the presence of the same initial letter in the adjoining quem. This restoration articulates the sentence, and at the same time reveals the idiomatic character of the syntax. The construction with quod is too common in the literature to need paralleling; significant as suggesting a contemporary provenance is its frequent use by Cicero in the Letters. As to its use in legal texts we may point to a near-by occurrence in v. 13 of this inscription, introducing one of the provisions with which we are dealing: ‘Quod quemquem h. l. profiterei oportebit, is apud quem ea professio fiet … ea quae professus erit … in tabulas publicas referunda curato.’ Another example is the lex agraria, cap. 26: ‘Quod quisque pecudes in calleis viasve publicas itineris causa induxerit … neiquid populo neive publicano dare debeto.’ It may also be noted that this construction early became stereotyped in the preambles of senatus consulta.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Jefferson Elmore 1915. Exclusive Licence to Publish: The Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies

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References

page 125 note 1 It comprises the first 19 lines of the extant text, and may be consulted in the following editions:

C.I.L. i, 206.

Dessau, lnscriptiones Latinae Selectae, 6085.

Girard,Textes de droit romain, p. 78.

Bruns, Fontes (7th ed.), p. 102.

A translation of the whole inscription is given in Hardy's, Six Roman Laws, pp. 149163Google Scholar.

page 125 note 2 See Ritschl, Monum. Priscae Latin. plate xxxiv.

page 125 note 3 See the examples in Bruns, 190–194.I believe that this construction should also be employed in the restoration of the first line of the lex Ursonensis LXI, which Bruns prints as follows: [LXI … Cui quis ita ma]num inicere iussus erit. As the reference is to a provsion of the twelve tables (Bruns, p. 20) I suggest the following restoration: LXI Quod quisquis rebus iure iudicatis manum inicere iussus erit.

page 126 note 1 Compare in passing Caesar, B. G. v, 58Google Scholar, Cicero. Att. xiii, 7, 1Google Scholar.

page 126 note 2 See vs. 96, 105, 108, 122, 126, 124.

page 126 note 3 cf. cap. lxv, 17, 20, 22; Bruns, p. 124.

page 126 note 4 op. cit. p. 141.

page 126 note 5 Cursus der Institutionen, i, 225. cf. Savigny, , Vermischte Schriften, iii, 375Google Scholar.

page 127 note 1 Caes. 41.

page 127 note 2 C.I.L. i, p. 124.

page 127 note 3 Journal of Roman Studies, iv, p. 70.

page 127 note 4 La Table latine d'Heraclée, pp. 40, f.

page 127 note 5 Caes. 41.

page 127 note 6 Mommsen, l.c. p. 124, glosses with ἐξέτασις.

page 127 note 7 Hardy, op. cit. p. 141.

page 127 note 8 l.c. 41.

page 127 note 9 cxv; cf. Plut. Caes. 55.

page 128 note 1 Aug. 40.

page 128 note 2 Civil Wars, ii, 102.

page 128 note 3 xliii 25, 5. In xliii, 21, 6 ἐξέτασις is not used in a technical sense.

page 128 note 4 cf. Reid, J. S., Municipalities of the Roman Empire, p. 132Google Scholar.

page 128 note 5 Philologus, xxix, 90.

page 128 note 6 Suetonius, Caes. 42.

page 128 note 7 Rheinisches Museum, xlv, 104.

page 128 note 8 Verhandlingen der Kon. Acad. van Wetenschte Amsterdam, xi, no. 4 (1910)Google Scholar.

page 128 note 9 pp. 170–4.

page 128 note 10 op. cit. p. 45, f.

page 129 note 1 Reid, Municipalities, p. 129.

page 129 note 2 Fam. vi, 18, 1: ‘Simul atque accepi a Seleuco tuo litteras, statim quaesivi e Balbo per codicillos, quid esset in lege; rescripsit eos qui facerent praeconium vetari esse in decurionibus, qui fecissent non vetari. Quare bono animo sint et tui et mei familiares; neque erat ferendum, cum qui hodie haruspicinam facerent, in senatum Romae legerentur, eos qui aliquando praeconium fecissent, in municipiis decuriones esse non licere.’

page 129 note 3 Except recently Mitteis, l.c. p. 164, on what seems to me very insufficient grounds.

page 130 note 1 cf.‘ego vero’ in Att. V, I, and Fam. iv, 6, 1, and Tyrrell's note on the latter passage.

page 130 note 2 For attempts to interpret these passages without recognising their real significance, see the notes of Tyrrell and Purser.

page 131 note 1 vs. 1–2.

page 131 note 2 vs. 4–7.

page 131 note 3 Roby, , Roman Private Law, i, 100Google Scholar.

page 131 note 4 The reference to the ‘pupillae’ is noteworthy for its bearing on Legras' theory that the professiones were a registration of newly-enfranchised citizens in the tribes (see above, p. 127). As women were not enrolled in the tribes (Botsford, Roman Assemblies, p. 60), those under guardianship being specifically mentioned by Livy (Epit. lix) as excluded, Legras accordingly falls back on the special list in which their names were entered. Doubtless there was such a list, but not only is there no evidence of it here, but the provisions for recording and posting the returns (vs. 13–17) would seem to render Legras' supposition altogether improbable.

page 131 note 5 Att. xiii, 33, 1.

page 131 note 6 Fam. xvi, 23, 1.

page 131 note 7 The dating of the letters is that of Purser in the Oxford text.

page 131 note 8 Plut. Aemil. Paul. 48; Marquardt, ii, 178(quoted by Niese).

page 131 note 9 Niese, Grundriss, p. 160.

page 131 note 10 Roman Public Life, pp. 115, 218.

page 132 note 1 C.I.L. i, p. 124.

page 132 note 2 Manuel de droit romain, p. 35.

page 132 note 3 Fontes, p. 102.

page 132 note 4 l.c. p. 178.

page 132 note 5 l.c. p. 107.

page 132 note 6 Legras' theory is improbable on other grounds. There is first the connexion of Balbus with the law. It is to him that Cicero refers Lepta's inquiry concerning the praecones, and it is Balbus (along with Faberius) who, five months later, gives Cicero information about the law for the latter's own use in complying with it. This is natural enough if Balbus knew personally of the initiation and passage of the measure; otherwise, it is hard to understand. In the letter to Lepta (referring to the eligibility to the local senates of those ‘qui praeconium fecissent’) Cicero says: ‘Qua re bono animo sint et tui et mei familiares.’ This language implies that a whole class of people had been disturbed by the uncertainty of their status, and is intended to reassure them. This situation could hardly have arisen if the law had been in operation for nearly forty years. Neither in this case would Cicero have undertaken (as he does in the following sentence) to explain the motive of those responsible for the law in not excluding those ‘qui praeconium fecissent.’ On the other hand it would be perfectly natural in referring to a recent measure to say that Caesar did not dare face public opinion. On the supposition that the law goes back to the Social war it is difficult to account for Cicero's own ignorance of it, especially as we now know that it made demands on him.

page 132 note 7 Fam. xii, 17, 1.

page 133 note 1 Dio, xliii, 25–6.

page 133 note 2 Dio, xliii, 25.

page 133 note 3 l.c. 41; cf. Aug. 40.

page 133 note 4 See above, p. 128.

page 133 note 5 For the κατ’ οἰκίαν ἀπογραϕή see Wilcken, Ostraka, 435–456; Grundzüge, 192–196. In the former work (p. 442) he recognises the relation between the Suetonius passage and Egyptian practice; cf. Daremberg, and Saglio, , Dictionnaire, s.v. Professio, iv, 675Google Scholar.

page 133 note 6 Wilcken, Ostraka, 461–471; Grundzüge, 202–205.

page 133 note 7 Kubitschek in Pauly-Wissowa, iii, 1903: ‘Von allen ordentlichen republicanischen Magistraturen hat sich die Censur am schnellsten abgenützt, und in den letzten Decennien des Freistaates ist ihr Apparat fast ganz ins Stocken geraten. Augustus [hat] nur ausnahmsweise die Censur wieder erweckt, meist aber ihre Geschäfte als consul und censoria potestate vollzogen.’

page 134 note 1 Fam. xvi, 23, 1. Dio, xlvi, 31, 3, writing of the year 43 B.C. speaks of a tax levied on the houses of senators according to the number of tiles on the roof; cf. Mommsen, , Gesammelte Schriften, i, 158, n. 55Google Scholar.

page 134 note 2 Att. xiii, 6, 1.

page 134 note 3 xliii, 25.

page 135 note 1 xxxviii, 13, 1.

page 135 note 2 Dio xxxix, 24, 1.

page 135 note 3 Suetonius, Caes. 41.

page 135 note 4 For the notable measures put into effect by Caesar through edicts, see Botsford, op. cit. 457 n. 6.

page 135 note 5 See Legras, op. cit. p. 34 and the authorities there cited.

page 135 note 6 cf. Rostowzew in Pauly-Wissowa, vii, p. 175.

page 136 note 1 cf. Mitteis, l.c. p. 160.

page 136 note 2 For this hypothesis, cf. Legras, op. cit. p. 226.

page 136 note 3 Studi Storici, v, 98.

page 136 note 4 l.c. p, 179.

page 136 note 5 Wilcken, Ostraka, p. 470, ff.

page 137 note 1 Mon. Ancyr, ii, 8.