Leiden conventions rendered as EpiDoc: restorations as supplied(reason=lost), gaps as gap, abbreviations as expan(abbr+ex), omitted letters as supplied(reason=omitted), surplus as surplus, corrections as corr. Critical apparatus as listApp. The facing translation is div type=translation; the historical commentary is div type=commentary.
Emperor Caesar Augustus, pontifex maximus, holding the tribunician power for the seventeenth time, acclaimed imperator for the fourteenth time, proclaims:
Since I find that in the province about Cyrene there are, of Roman citizens of every age, 215 in all who have a property assessment of 2,500 denarii or more — the men from whom the jurors are drawn — and that among these very men there are certain cliques; and since the embassies from the cities of the province have lamented that these cliques bear hard upon the Greeks in capital trials, the same men by turns accusing and bearing witness for one another; and since I myself have come to know that some innocent men have in this way been borne down and brought to the extreme penalty: until the Senate takes counsel on this matter, or I myself find some better course, it seems to me that those who shall govern the province of Crete and Cyrene will act well and fittingly if they set up, in the province about Cyrene, an equal number of Greek jurors, drawn from the highest property-classes, as of Romans — none younger than twenty-five years, neither Roman nor Greek, and none holding an assessment and estate of less than 7,500 denarii, if there is a supply of such men; or, if in this way the number of jurors that ought to be empanelled cannot be filled, let them empanel as jurors, for the capital trials of Greeks, men holding half, and not less than half, of that assessment.
And if a Greek is on trial, let him be given, on the day before the accuser begins to speak, the power to decide whether he wishes all his jurors to be Romans, or half of them Greeks. If he chooses the half-Greek jury, then, when the balls have been weighed and the names inscribed upon them, let the names of the Romans be drawn from one urn and those of the Greeks from the other, until twenty-five of each class are made up; of these the prosecutor may, if he wishes, reject one of each class, and the defendant three out of all, provided that he rejects neither all the Romans nor all the Greeks. Then let all the rest be released to the casting of votes, and let them vote separately — the Romans casting their ballot into one box, the Greeks into another; and then, when the counting of the votes from each side has been done separately, let the governor pronounce in public whatever the majority of them all decide.
And since, for the most part, the kinsmen of those unjustly killed do not let their deaths go unavenged, and since it is likely that Greek accusers will not fail the guilty — men to exact justice on behalf of slain kinsmen or fellow-citizens — it seems to me right and fitting that whoever shall govern Crete and Cyrene should not, in the province about Cyrene, admit a Roman as the accuser of a Greek for the killing of a Greek man or woman, unless some person honoured with Roman citizenship is pleading over the death of one of his own kinsmen or fellow-citizens.
(See the formula-dossier case study for verse-by-verse translation and discussion.)
Emperor Caesar Augustus, pontifex maximus, holding the tribunician power for the seventeenth time, proclaims: Envy and blame ought not to fall upon Publius Sextius Scaeva because he took care that Aulus Stlaccius Maximus, son of Lucius, Lucius Stlaccius Macedo, son of Lucius, and Publius Lacutanius Phileros, freedman of Publius, were sent to me under guard from the province of Cyrene — since these men declared that they knew, and wished to tell, something that bore upon my safety and the public interest. For in this Sextius acted as was fitting and with care. But since they know nothing of what concerns me and the public interest, and have made plain to me that they had invented this and lied about it in the province, I free them from custody and dismiss them.
But Aulus Stlaccius Maximus, whom the envoys of the Cyrenaeans accuse of having taken statues from public places — among them the one on whose base the city had inscribed my name — him I forbid to depart without my order, until I reach a decision on this matter.
Emperor Caesar Augustus, pontifex maximus, holding the tribunician power for the seventeenth time, proclaims: If any persons from the province of Cyrene have been honoured with citizenship, I nonetheless command them to perform the liturgies, in their proper turn, within the body of the Greeks — except those to whom, by a law or a decree of the Senate, or by my father's ruling or my own, exemption from tribute has been given together with the citizenship. And it is my pleasure that these same men, to whom exemption from tribute has been given, be free of dues in respect of the property they then held; but that upon everything acquired afterwards they pay the dues that fall due.
Emperor Caesar Augustus, pontifex maximus, holding the tribunician power for the seventeenth time, proclaims: Whatever disputes arise between Greeks in the province of Cyrene — those liable to a capital charge excepted, in which whoever holds the province must himself examine and decide, or furnish a panel of jurors — for all other matters it is my pleasure that Greek jurors be assigned, unless the one from whom recovery is sought, or the man under investigation, wishes to have Roman citizens as jurors. But among those to whom, by this my edict, Greek jurors shall be assigned, it is my pleasure that no juror be appointed from that city from which the plaintiff or accuser comes, nor from that from which comes the one from whom recovery is sought or the man under investigation.
Emperor Caesar Augustus, pontifex maximus, holding the tribunician power for the nineteenth time, proclaims: The decree of the Senate passed in the consulship of Gaius Calvisius and Lucius Passienus, ratified while I was present and joined in subscribing it, which bears upon the security of the allies of the People of Rome — that it may be known to all for whom we take thought — I have resolved to send into the provinces and to append to my own edict, so that from it it shall be clear to all who dwell in the provinces how great a care both I and the Senate take that none of those subject to us should suffer anything contrary to what is due, or have anything exacted from him unduly.
Decree of the Senate. Whereas Gaius Calvisius Sabinus and Lucius Passienus Rufus, the consuls, made a statement — ‘Concerning the matters which Emperor Caesar Augustus, our leader, in accordance with the resolution of the advisory council that he obtained by lot from the Senate, wished to be brought through us before the Senate, matters bearing upon the security of the allies of the People of Rome’ — the Senate decreed as follows: Whereas our forefathers established by law the suits for the recovery of money, that the allies might the more easily prosecute whatever wrongs they have suffered and recover the moneys taken from them...
...and whereas the nature of such trials is at times most heavy and most vexatious for the very men for whose sake the law was written — since impoverished men, and some weak through illness or old age, are dragged as witnesses from far-distant provinces — it is the pleasure of the Senate that, if any of the allies, after this decree of the Senate has been passed, should wish to recover moneys exacted from them publicly or privately, apart from accusing on a capital charge the man who took them, and shall on this account present themselves and lay information before one of the magistrates empowered to convene the Senate, that magistrate shall bring them before the Senate as quickly as possible and shall give them, to speak on their behalf before the Senate, whatever advocate they themselves request; but let no one plead against his will to whom, by the laws, release from this public service has been given.
As for the charges they lay before the Senate, that they may be heard: the magistrate who grants them access to the Senate shall, on that same day, with the Senate present so that there be not fewer than two hundred, draw by lot four men from all the consulars who are in Rome itself or within twenty miles of the city; likewise three from all the men of praetorian rank who are in Rome itself or within twenty miles of the city; likewise two from the rest of the senators, or all those allowed to give an opinion in the Senate, who are at that time either at Rome or within twenty miles of the city. But let him draw by lot no man who is seventy years of age or more, or set in a magistracy or office, or president of a court, or curator of the grain-supply, or whom illness hinders from performing this public service — once he has sworn to it before the Senate and furnished three sworn members of the Senate on his behalf — nor anyone joined to him by kinship or close connection such that, by the Julian Law on the courts, he cannot be compelled against his will to testify in a public court, nor anyone whom the man under investigation swears before the Senate to be his enemy; but let him not so reject more than three. When nine men have been allotted in this way, the magistrate who conducted the drawing shall see to it that, within two days, those who pursue the money and the man from whom they pursue it reject jurors in turn, until five are left.
Whoever of these jurors should die before the case is judged, or some other cause hinder him from judging — his excuse being approved on the oath of five men from the Senate — then the magistrate, in the presence of the jurors and of those who pursue the money and of him from whom they pursue it, shall draw a substitute by lot from those men who are of the same order and have held the same magistracies as the man in whose place the lot is cast; provided that there be not allotted a man whom, in the case of the one under accusation, this decree of the Senate does not allow to be drawn. The jurors thus chosen shall hear and decide only those matters of which a man is accused of having embezzled, publicly or privately; and whatever sum of money the accusers prove to have been carried off from them, privately or publicly, that sum let the jurors order to be repaid — on the condition that the jurors give judgment within thirty days.
Those who must examine and deliver an opinion on these matters shall, until they have judged and declared their opinion, be exempt from every public service save the public rites. And it is the pleasure of the Senate that the magistrate who conducted the allotment of the jurors — or, if he cannot, the senior of the consuls — shall preside over this arbitration, and shall have power to grant the summoning of witnesses who are in Italy: for one pursuing a private claim, not more than five; for those pursuing a public claim, not more than ten. Likewise it is the pleasure of the Senate that the jurors who are allotted under this decree shall declare their opinion openly, as seems good to each; and whatever the majority declare, that shall stand.
The first edict opens with the imperial titulature and the formula λέγει, ‘proclaims’ — the Greek signature of the Roman edictum. Augustus states a finding of fact: only 215 Roman citizens in the province meet the property rating from which jurors are drawn, and that this tiny pool has formed cliques (συνωμοσίαι) that bear hard on Greeks in capital cases. His remedy is a panel of Greek jurors equal in number to the Roman, drawn from the wealthiest men of the province (de Visscher 1940, 19–41).
The procedure is set out in detail: the Greek defendant chooses an all-Roman or a half-Greek jury; the panels are drawn by lot from separate urns; prosecutor and defendant exercise limited rejections; the two halves vote into separate boxes, and the governor announces the majority verdict. A closing rider keeps the accusation of a Greek's murder in Greek hands. This is the earliest surviving imperial regulation of a provincial criminal court, and it shows Augustus legislating provisionally — until the Senate decides — by edict (Sherk 1969, no. 31; Reynolds, IRCyr2020 C.101).
The second edict is a particular ruling, not a general regulation — the emperor pronouncing on a single case. Publius Sextius Scaeva, who had governed Cyrene, had sent three men to Rome under guard because they claimed to know of a threat to the emperor's safety (σωτηρία) and to the public interest. Augustus clears Scaeva of blame: he had acted properly and conscientiously. The informers, having confessed that they had invented the whole story, he frees and dismisses (de Visscher 1940; Johnson 1961, no. 148).
The edict then turns to one of the three, Aulus Stlaccius Maximus, separately accused by Cyrenaean envoys of stripping statues from public places — among them a statue whose base carried the emperor's own name. Him Augustus forbids to leave Rome until the matter is judged. That an emperor proclaims by edict on a single provincial case shows how the edictum served not only to legislate but to publish a verdict (Reynolds, IRCyr2020 C.101).
The third edict settles a question of double obligation. Provincials of Cyrene who had been honoured with Roman citizenship were claiming that the new status released them from the liturgies — the compulsory public services owed to their Greek cities. Augustus rules against them: Roman citizenship does not, of itself, dissolve the duties a man owes within the body of the Greeks. Only an explicit grant of immunity from tribute — by a law, a decree of the Senate, or a decree of his father or himself — carries that exemption (de Visscher 1940; Sherk 1969, no. 31).
Even then the exemption is bounded: it covers only the property the man held at the moment of the grant, not what he acquires afterwards. The edict is an early statement of a principle that would matter ever more as citizenship spread: that Roman status and local civic burden are separable, and that a privilege is read strictly, by its express words. The point recurs across the corpus, from the Tabula Banasitana onward (Reynolds, IRCyr2020 C.101).
Where the first edict had treated capital trials, the fourth treats every other kind of suit. For disputes between Greeks in the province — capital charges expressly reserved to the governor's own cognizance — Augustus rules that the jurors are to be Greeks, unless a party positively asks for Roman jurors. The default, in other words, is local justice for local litigants (de Visscher 1940; Reynolds, IRCyr2020 C.101).
A second clause guards against the home-town advantage: no juror may be drawn from the city of either the plaintiff or the defendant. Together the four edicts of 7–6 BC compose a small charter for the courts of one senatorial province — a worked example of an emperor regulating, by edict, the daily administration of justice far from Rome (Johnson 1961, no. 148).
The fifth edict, two years later than the rest (4 BC), is a covering note. Augustus announces that he is sending to the provinces, and appending to his own edict, a decree of the Senate passed in the consulship of Calvisius and Passienus — a decree he had himself been present to see ratified and had joined in subscribing. Its subject is the security of the allies of the Roman People (de Visscher 1940; Reynolds, IRCyr2020 C.101).
The edict is a precious glimpse of how Roman public documents travelled. A senatorial decree did not reach the provinces of itself; it needed an imperial act of transmission — the emperor folding the dógma into his own prógramma so that it would be ‘clear to all who dwell in the provinces’. Edict V and the senatus consultum it introduces belong together, and were cut together on the stone (Sherk 1969, no. 31).
The sixth document is not an edict but a senatus consultum — the decree of 4 BC that Edict V forwards. It opens with the consuls' relatio, the formal statement that Augustus, acting on the advice of a senatorial council drawn by lot, had asked them to bring the matter before the Senate. The decree then creates a wholly new procedure for the recovery of money wrongfully taken from the allies (de Visscher 1940; Johnson 1961, no. 148).
Where the old quaestio de repetundis dragged poor and infirm provincial witnesses to a long jury trial at Rome, the new recuperatores procedure is swift and senatorial. A provincial lays his complaint before a magistrate; a panel of nine senators is drawn by lot, reduced by challenge to five; they hear only the question of money embezzled, and must order restitution within thirty days. The senatus consultum Calvisianum is the most detailed Roman procedural text on the stone, and a key witness to the Senate's judicial role under Augustus (Sherk 1969, no. 31; Reynolds, IRCyr2020 C.101).