POSTLĪMĬNĬUM, POSTLĪMĬNII JUS. If a Roman citizen during war came into the possession of an enemy, he sustained a diminutio capitis maxima [[Caput]], and all his civil rights were in abeyance. Being captured by the enemy, he became a slave; but his rights over his children, if he had any, were not destroyed, but were said to be in abeyance (pendere) by virtue of the Jus Postliminii: when he returned, his children were again in his power; and if he died in captivity, they became sui juris. Sometimes by an act of the state a man was given up bound to an enemy, and if the enemy would not receive him, it was a question whether he had the Jus Postliminii. This was the case with Sp. Postumius, who was given up to the Samnites, and with C. Hostilius Mancinus, who was given up to the Numantines; but the better opinion was, that they had no Jus Postliminii, and Mancinus was restored to his civic rights by a lex. It appears that the Jus Postliminii was founded on the fiction of the captive having never been absent from home; a fiction which was of easy application, for, as the captive during his absence could not do any legal act, the interval of captivity was a period of legal non-activity, which was terminated by his showing himself again.
PŎTESTAS. [[Patria Potestas].]
PRACTŎRES (πράκτορες), subordinate officers at Athens, who collected the fines and penalties (ἐπιβολάς and τιμήματα) imposed by magistrates and courts of justice, and payable to the state.
PRAECINCTĬO. [[Amphitheatrum].]
PRAECŌNES, criers, were employed for various purposes: 1. In sales by auction, they frequently advertised the time, place, and conditions of sale: they seem also to have acted the part of the modern auctioneer, so far as calling out the biddings and amusing the company, though the property was knocked down by the magister auctionis. [[Auctio].] 2. In all public assemblies they ordered silence. 3. In the comitia they called the centuries one by one to give their votes, pronounced the vote of each century, and called out the names of those who were elected. They also recited the laws that were to be passed. 4. In trials, they summoned the accuser and the accused, the plaintiff and defendant. 5. In the public games, they invited the people to attend, and proclaimed the victors. 6. In solemn funerals they also invited people to attend by a certain form; hence these funerals were called funera indictiva. 7. When things were lost, they cried them and searched for them. 8. In the infliction of capital punishment, they sometimes conveyed the commands of the magistrates to the lictors. Their office, called Praeconium, appears to have been regarded as rather disreputable: in the time of Cicero a law was passed preventing all persons who had been praecones from becoming decuriones in the municipia. Under the early emperors, however, it became very profitable, which was no doubt partly owing to fees, to which they were entitled in the courts of justice, and partly to the bribes which they received from the suitors, &c.
PRAEDA signifies moveable things taken by an enemy in war. Such things were either distributed by the Imperator among the soldiers or sold by the quaestors, and the produce was brought into the Aerarium. The difference between Praeda and Manubiae is this:—Praeda is the things themselves that are taken in war, and Manubiae is the money realized by their sale. It was the practice to set up a spear at such sales, which was afterwards used at all sales of things by a magistrates in the name of the people. [[Sectio].]
PRAEFECTŪRA. [[Colonia].]
PRAEFECTUS AERĀRĬI. [[Aerarium].]
PRAEFECTUS ANNŌNAE, the praefect of the provisions, especially of the corn-market, was not a regular magistrate under the republic, but was only appointed in cases of extraordinary scarcity, when he seems to have regulated the prices at which corn was to be sold. Augustus created an officer under the title of Praefectus Annonae, who had jurisdiction over all matters appertaining to the corn-market, and, like the Praefectus Vigilum, was chosen from the equites, and was not reckoned among the ordinary magistrates.
PRAEFECTUS ĂQUĀRUM. [[Aquae Ductus].]