[1867] Suet. Claud. 14 “(Claudius) iis, qui apud privatos judices pius petendo formula excidissent, restituit actiones”; Dom. 8 “(Domitianus) ambitiosas centumvirorum sententias rescidit.”
[1868] This power was employed by Augustus (Suet. Aug. 32 “Diuturnorum reorum ... nomina abolevit”), Gaius (Suet. Calig. 15 “criminum ... si quae residua ex priore tempore manebant, omnium gratiam fecit”; cf. Dio Cass. lix. 6), Vespasian (Dio Cass. lxvi. 9), and Domitian (Suet. Dom. 9).
[1869] p. 388.
[1870] Cic. in Vat. 14, 33.
[1871] p. 390.
[1872] Dig. 48, 19, 9, 11 “referre ad principem debet, ut ex auctoritate ejus poena aut permutetur aut liberaretur.”
[1873] The capital punishment of decurions was prohibited by Hadrian (Dig. 48, 19, 15), and the earliest mandata, directing the procedure of governors in such cases, proceed from the divi fratres (ib. 48, 19, 27, 1 and 2). The punishment of deportation had been confined to the Princeps and the praefects of the praetorian guard and the city by the time of Septimius Severus (ib. 48, 19, 2, 1 and 48, 22, 6, 1; cf. § 7).
[1874] Pliny often raises this question in his correspondence with Trajan (31 [40], 4; 56 [64], 3; 57 [65], 1). The passages seem to show (i.) that there was at the time no fixed rule defining the governor’s power of restitutio, at least in public provinces; (ii.) that restitutio by a governor was felt to be permissible in certain cases.
[1875] A passage in Justinian’s Code (9, 51, 1) shows us Antoninus (Caracalla) saying to a man, who had been deported to an island, “Restituo te in integrum provinciae tuae.”
[1876] Greenidge in Classical Review viii. p. 437.