Объем полномочий и практическая деятельность децемвиров

Abstract

В статье рассматривается объем полномочий децемвиров, изучается практическая деятельность коллегии в военной, гражданско-административной и судебной сферах. The author demonstrates that, according to the sources, the Romans regarded decemviri's competence as that of a higher magistrate. The ancient writers applied the term of «consular power» to their competence in the sense of «supreme executive collegial power». As a collegial body of magistrates cum imperio decemviri executed the power of imperium by turns. The author maintains that the sources give us no ground to suppose that the term of each decemvir's power was equal to interrex's term of office. As extraordinary magistrates, decemviri were excepted from tribune's inter cessio and from the right of provocano, which, in the author's opinion, was legally accepted in the Roman political system in the early Republican period. Collegial intercession could be executed as long as decemvirate's legitimate power was valid. The Senate could exert influence upon decemviri by the force of auctoritas patrum. Decemviri's functions were those of military and civil leaders of the community. They recruited soldiers, they could be in command of military forces at wartime, they could summon and preside over comitia, convoke the Senate and start its session by their speech. Decemviri enjoyed wide judicial powers, presiding at the trials and acting as judges or prosecutors. In their practical activity decemviri could deprive some categories of citizens of their citizenship. Decemviri's specific function was that of fixing laws in written form, based upon these magistrates' summum imperium. The Twelve Tables came into being as a result of this kind of activity. The author dates ten tables back to the first decemvirate, and two tables to the second one. The author insists on extraordinary power to have not been sufficient for adopting the Twelve Tables. The first ten tables must have been published by the first decemvirate and voted at comitia centuriata. Publication and adoption of the two last tables are dated from the consulate of Valerius and Horatius. There are some grounds to admit that the reform of the calendar by the second decemvirate was a historical fact. Decemviri's immediate state activities can be regarded as exercizing summum imperium in military and legal spheres as well as in civil administration.