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684
LEX AELIA SENTIA.
modern collection is that in the Onomasticon of Orellius, intitled " Index Legum Romanaruin qua-rum apud Ciceronem, ejusque Scholiastas, item apud Livium, Velleium Paterculum, A. Gellium no-minatim meritio fit." There are also extant fragments of several laws on bronze tablets, such as the Lex Thoria, which is a Lex Agraria, and is cut on the back of the same tablet which contains the Lex Servilia ; the Lex Rubria ; and some few other monuments.
The following- is a list of the principal Leges : —
ACILTA de coloniis deducendis (Liv. xxxii. 29).
ACTLI A. [repetundae.]
ACILIA CALPURNIA. [ambitus.]
AEBUTIA, of uncertain date, which with two Juliae Leges put an end to the Legis Actiones, except in certain cases. [judex ; actio.]
Another Lex of the same name prohibited the proposer of a lex, which created any office or power (curatio ac potestas), from having such office or power, and even excluded his collegae, cognati and nffines. (Cic. inRull. ii. 8, where he mentions also a Lex Licinia, and in the pro Domo, 20.)
AELIA. This Lex and a Fufia Lex passed about the end of the sixth century of the city, gave to all the magistrates the obnunciatio or power of preventing or dissolving the comitia, by observing the omens and declaring them to be unfavourable. (Cic. Phil. ii. 32, pro Sestio, 15, ad Att. ii. 9.)
There is some difficulty in stating the precise nature of these two Leges ; for it is most probable that there were two. The passages in which they are mentioned are collected in Orellii Onomasticon, Index Legum.
AELIA de coloniis deducendis. (Liv. xxxiv. 53.)
AELIA SENTIA. This law which was passed in the time of Augustus (about a. d. 3), chiefly regulated the manumission of slaves ; a matter that has been put under certain restrictions in modern slave states also.
By one provision of this law slaves who had been put in chains by their masters as a punishment, or branded, or subjected to the other punishments mentioned in the law (Gains, i. 13), if they were afterwards manumitted either by the same master or another, did not become Roman citizens or even Latini, but were in the class of Peregrini dediticii. [dediticii.] The law also made regulations as to the age of slaves who might be manumitted. It enacted that slaves under thirty years of a,ge who were manumitted, only became Roman citizens when they were manumitted by the Vin-dicta, and after a legal cause for manumission had been established before a cons ilium. What was a legal cause (causa justa), and how the consi-lium was constituted, are explained by Gaius (i. 3 9, 20). These consilia for the manumission of slaves wore held at stated times in the provinces, and in Rome. A slave under thirty years of age could become a Roman citizen if he was made free and heres by the testament of a master, who was not solvent. (Gains, i. 21.) The law also contained provisions by which those who were under thirty years of a^e at the time of mamvmis-
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&ion, and had become Latini in consequence of manumission, might acquire the Roman citizenship on certain conditions, which were these. They must have taken to wife a Roman citizen, or a Latina coloniaria or a woman of the same class as
LEGES ANNALES.
themselves, and must have had as evidence of that fact the presence of five Roman citizens of full1 age, and have begotten a son who had attained the age of one year. On showing these facts to the praetor at Rome, or to the governor in a province, and the magistrate declaring that the facts were proved, the man, his wife, and his child became Roman citizens. If the father died before he had proved his case before the magistrate, the mother could do it, and the legal effect was the same.
If a man manumitted his slave to defraud his creditors, or to defraud a patron of his patronal rights, the act of manumission was made invalid by this law. A person under the age of twenty years was also prevented from manumitting any slave, except by the process of Vindicta, and after establishing a legal cause before a consilium. The consequence was that though a male, who had completed his fourteenth year, could make a will, he could not by his will manumit a slave (Gaius, i. 37—40). A male under the age of twenty could manumit his slave so as to make him a Latinus, but this also required a legal cause to be affirmed by a consilium. The provisions of the Lex Aelia Sentia, as to manumitting slaves for the purpose of defrauding creditors, did not apply to Per •-grini, until the provision was extended for their benefit by a Sctum in the time of Hadrian. The other provisions of the Lex did not apply to Peregrini. The application of the principles of the Law is shown in other passages of Gains (i. 60, 68, 70, 71, 80, 139, iii. 5, 73, 74). In a free state, when manumission must change the condition of slaves into that of citizens, the importance of limiting and regulating the manumitting power is obvious. Under the later Empire such regulations would be of little importance. This law was passed according to the constitutional forms in the time of Augustus, when the status of a Civis had not yet lost its value, and the semblance ot the old constitution still existed (Ulpian, Frag. tit. i.; Dig. 28. tit. 5. s. 57, 60 ; 38, tit. 2. s. 33 ; Tacit. Annal. xv. 55.)
AEMFLIA de censoribtjs. A Lex passed in the Dictatorship of Mamercus Aemilius (b. c. 433), by which the Censors were elected for a year and a half, instead of a whole lustrum. (Liv. iv. 24, ix. 33.) After this Lex they had accordingly only a year and a half allowed them for holding the census and letting out the public works to farm.
AEMFLIA BAEBIA. [cornelia baebia.]
AEMI’LIA LE’PIDI, AEMI’LIA SCAURI.
[SUMTUARIAE LEGES.]
AGRARIAE. [agrariae leges ; and lex apuleia ; cassia ; cornelia ; flaminia ; flavia ; julia ; licinia ; mamilia ; sem-pronia ; servilia ; thoria.]
AMBITUS. [ambitus.]
AMPIA, a Lex proposed by T. Ampins and T. Labienus, tr. pi. b. c. 64, by which Cn. Pom-peius was allowed to wear a crown of bay at the Ludi Circenses, and the like. (Veil. Pat. ii. 40 ; • Dion Cass. xxxvii. 21.)
ANNALES LEGES were those Leges which determined at what age a man might ‘be a candidate for the several magistratus. (Cic. Philipp. v. 17.)
The first Lex which particularly determined the age at which a man might be a candidate for the several magistratus was the Villia. It was
