ADRŎGĀTĬO. [[Adoptio], (Roman).]
ĂDULTĔRĬUM, adultery. (1) Greek.—Among the Athenians, if a man caught another man in the act of criminal intercourse (μοιχεία) with his wife, he might kill him with impunity; and the law was also the same with respect to a concubine (παλλακή). He might also inflict other punishment on the offender. It appears that there was no adultery, unless a married woman was concerned. The husband might, if he pleased, take a sum of money from the adulterer, by way of compensation, and detain him till he found sureties for the payment. The husband might also prosecute the adulterer in the action called μοιχείας γραφή. If the act of adultery was proved, the husband could no longer cohabit with his wife, under pain of losing his privileges of a citizen (ἀτιμία). The adulteress was excluded even from those temples which foreign women and slaves were allowed to enter; and if she was seen there, any one might treat her as he pleased, provided he did not kill her or mutilate her.—(2) Roman.—The word adulterium properly signifies, in the Roman law, the offence committed by a man’s having sexual intercourse with another man’s wife. Stuprum (called by the Greeks φθορά) signifies the like offence with a widow or virgin. In the time of Augustus a law was enacted (probably about B.C. 17), entitled Lex Julia de adulteriis coercendis, which seems to have contained special penal provisions against adultery; and it is also not improbable that, by the old law or custom, if the adulterer was caught in the fact, he was at the mercy of the injured husband, and that the husband might punish with death his adulterous wife. By the Julian law, a woman convicted of adultery was mulcted in half of her dowry (dos) and the third part of her property (bona), and banished (relegata) to some miserable island, such as Seriphos, for instance. The adulterer was mulcted in half his property, and banished in like manner. This law did not inflict the punishment of death on either party; and in those instances under the emperors in which death was inflicted, it must be considered as an extraordinary punishment, and beyond the provisions of the Julian law. The Julian law permitted the father (both adoptive and natural) to kill the adulterer and adulteress in certain cases, as to which there were several nice distinctions established by the law. If the wife was divorced for adultery, the husband was entitled to retain part of the dowry. By a constitution of the Emperor Constantine, the offence in the adulterer was made capital.
ADVERSĀRĬA, a note-book, memorandum-book, posting-book, in which the Romans entered memoranda of any importance, especially of money received and expended, which were afterwards transcribed, usually every month, into a kind of ledger. (Tabulae justae, codex accepti et expensi.)
ADVERSĀRĬUS. [[Actor].]
ĂDŬNĂTI (ἀδύνατοι), were persons supported by the Athenian state, who, on account of infirmity or bodily defects, were unable to obtain a livelihood. The sum which they received from the state appears to have varied at different times. In the time of Lysias and Aristotle, one obolus a day was given; but it appears to have been afterwards increased to two oboli. The bounty was restricted to persons whose property was under three minae; and the examination of those who were entitled to it belonged to the senate of the Five Hundred. Peisistratus is said to have been the first to introduce a law for the maintenance of those persons who had been mutilated in war.
ADVOCATUS, seems originally to have signified any person who gave another his aid in any affair or business, as a witness for instance; or for the purpose of aiding and protecting him in taking possession of a piece of property. It was also used to express a person who in any way gave his advice and aid to another in the management of a cause; but, in the time of Cicero, the word did not signify the orator or patronus who made the speech. Under the emperors it signified a person who in any way assisted in the conduct of a cause, and was sometimes equivalent to orator. The advocate’s fee was then called Honorarium.
ĂDỸTUM. [[Templum].]
AEDES. [[Domus]; Templum.]
AEDĪLES (ἀγορανόμοι). The name of these functionaries is said to be derived from their having the care of the temple (aedes) of Ceres. The aediles were originally two in number: they were elected from the plebs, and the institution of the office dates from the same time as that of the tribunes of the plebs, B.C. 494. Their duties at first seem to have been merely ministerial; they were the assistants of the tribunes in such matters as the tribunes entrusted to them, among which are enumerated the hearing of causes of smaller importance. At an early period after their institution (B.C. 446), we find them appointed the keepers of the senatus-consulta, which the consuls had hitherto arbitrarily suppressed or altered. They were also the keepers of the plebiscita. Other functions were gradually entrusted to them, and it is not always easy to distinguish their duties from some of those which belong to the censors. They had the general superintendence of buildings, both sacred and private; under this power they provided for the support and repair of temples, curiae, &c., and took care that private buildings which were in a ruinous state were repaired by the owners or pulled down. The care of the supply and distribution of water, of the streets and pavements, with the cleansing and draining of the city, belonged to the aediles; and, of course, the care of the cloacae. They had the office of distributing corn among the plebs, but this distribution of corn at Rome must not be confounded with the duty of purchasing or procuring it from foreign parts, which was performed by the consuls, quaestors, and praetors, and sometimes by an extraordinary magistrate, as the praefectus annonae. The aediles had to see that the public lands were not improperly used, and that the pasture grounds of the state were not trespassed on; and they had power to punish by fine any unlawful act in this respect. They had a general superintendence over buying and selling, and, as a consequence, the supervision of the markets, of things exposed to sale, such as slaves, and of weights and measures; from this part of their duty is derived the name under which the aediles are mentioned by the Greek writers (ἀγορανόμοι). It was their business to see that no new deities or religious rites were introduced into the city, to look after the observance of religious ceremonies, and the celebrations of the ancient feasts and festivals. The general superintendence of police comprehended the duty of preserving order, regard to decency, and the inspection of the baths and houses of entertainment. The aediles had various officers under them, as praecones, scribae, and viatores. The Aediles Curules, who were also two in number, were originally chosen only from the patricians, afterwards alternately from the patricians and the plebs, and at last indifferently from both. The office of curule aediles was instituted B.C. 365, and, according to Livy, on the occasion of the plebeian aediles refusing to consent to celebrate the Ludi Maximi for the space of four days instead of three; upon which a senatus-consultum was passed, by which two aediles were to be chosen from the patricians. From this time four aediles, two plebeian and two curule, were annually elected. The distinctive honours of the curule aediles were, the sella curulis, from whence their title is derived, the toga praetexta, precedence in speaking in the senate, and the jus imaginum. Only the curule aediles had the jus edicendi, or the right of promulgating edicta; but the rules comprised in their edicta served for the guidance of all the aediles. The edicta of the curule aediles were founded on their authority as superintendents of the markets, and of buying and selling in general. Accordingly, their edicts had mainly, or perhaps solely, reference to the rules as to buying and selling, and contracts for bargain and sale. The persons both of the plebeian and curule aediles were sacrosancti. It seems that after the appointment of the curule aediles, the functions formerly exercised by the plebeian aediles were exercised, with some few exceptions, by all the aediles indifferently. Within five days after being elected, or entering on office, they were required to determine by lot, or by agreement among themselves, what parts of the city each should take under his superintendence; and each aedile alone had the care of looking after the paving and cleansing of the streets, and other matters, it may be presumed, of the same local character within his district. The other duties of the office seem to have been exercised by them jointly. In the superintendence of the public festivals or solemnities, there was a further distinction between the two sets of aediles. Many of these festivals, such as those of Flora and Ceres, were superintended by either set of aediles indifferently; but the plebeian games were under the superintendence of the plebeian aediles, who had an allowance of money for that purpose; and the fines levied on the pecuarii, and others, seem to have been appropriated to these among other public purposes. The celebration of the Ludi Magni or Romani, of the Ludi Scenici, or dramatic representations, and the Ludi Megalesii, belonged specially to the curule aediles, and it was on such occasions that they often incurred a prodigious expense, with a view of pleasing the people, and securing their votes in future elections. This extravagant expenditure of the aediles arose after the close of the second Punic war, and increased with the opportunities which individuals had of enriching themselves after the Roman arms were carried into Greece, Africa, and Spain. Even the prodigality of the emperors hardly surpassed that of individual curule aediles under the republic; such as C. Julius Caesar, the dictator, P. Cornelius Lentulus Spinther, and, above all, M. Aemilius Scaurus, whose expenditure was not limited to bare show, but comprehended objects of public utility, as the reparation of walls, dock-yards, ports, and aquaeducts. In B.C. 45, Julius Caesar caused two curule aediles and four plebeian aediles to be elected; and thenceforward, at least so long as the office of aedile was of any importance, six aediles were annually elected. The two new plebeian aediles were called Cereales, and their duty was to look after the supply of corn. Though their office may not have been of any great importance after the institution of a praefectus annonae by Augustus, there is no doubt that it existed for several centuries, and at least as late as the time of the emperor Gordian. The aediles belonged to the class of the minores magistratus. The plebeian aediles were originally chosen at the comitia centuriata, but afterwards at the comitia tributa, in which comitia the curule aediles also were chosen. It appears that until the lex annalis was passed (B.C. 180) a Roman citizen might be a candidate for any office after completing his twenty-seventh year. This law fixed the age at which each office might be enjoyed, and it seems that the age fixed for the aedileship was thirty-six. The aediles existed under the emperors; but their powers were gradually diminished, and their functions exercised by new officers created by the emperors. After the battle of Actium, Augustus appointed a Praefectus urbi, who exercised the general police, which had formerly been one of the duties of the aediles. Augustus also took from the aediles, or exercised himself, the office of superintending the religious rites, and the banishing from the city of all foreign ceremonials; he also assumed the superintendence of the temples, and thus may be said to have destroyed the aedileship by depriving it of its old and original function. The last recorded instance of the splendours of the aedileship is the administration of Agrippa, who volunteered to take the office, and repaired all the public buildings and all the roads at his own expense, without drawing anything from the treasury. The aedileship had, however, lost its true character before this time. Agrippa had already been consul before he accepted the office of aedile, and his munificent expenditure in this nominal office was the close of the splendour of the aedileship. Augustus appointed the curule aediles specially to the office of putting out fires, and placed a body of 600 slaves at their command; but the praefecti vigilum afterwards performed this duty. They retained, under the early emperors, a kind of police, for the purpose of repressing open licentiousness and disorder. The coloniae, and the municipia of the later period, had also their aediles, whose numbers and functions varied in different places. They seem, however, as to their powers and duties, to have resembled the aediles of Rome. They were chosen annually.
AEDĬTŬI, AEDĬTŬMI, AEDĬTĬMI (called by the Greeks νεωκόροι, ζάκοροι, and ὑποζάκοροι), were persons who took care of the temples, attended to the cleaning of them, &c. They appear to have lived in the temples, or near them, and to have acted as ciceroni to those persons who wished to see them. Subsequently among the Greeks, the menial services connected with this office were left to slaves, and the persons called neocori became priestly officers of high rank, who had the chief superintendence of temples, their treasures, and the sacred rites observed in them.