The calatis comitiis testament

• Author: Cristinel Ioan Murzea
• Position: Law Department, Transilvania University of Brasov
• Pages: 197-208

Bulletin of the Transilvania University of Braşov

Series VII: Social Sciences • Law • Vol. 8 (57) No. 1 - 2015

THE CALATIS COMITIIS TESTAMENT

Cristinel Ioan MURZEA1

Abstract: This paper aims to analyze the Calatis comitiis testament drafted

before the curiata assembly bearing the name of comitia curiata which

gathered on two fixed days of the year. Due to the fact that this type of will

could be done only twice a year and only in Rome, the subsequent emergence

of the will per aes et libram was fully justified. This will allowed the testator

to designate his/her heir, the traditional opinion shared by most authors

being that this will had the role of establishing a successor.

Key words: testament, congregation, heir.

1 Law Department, Transilvania University of Braşov.

1. Introduction

According to the information transmitted

by Gaius, it is known that this kind of

testament, T estamentum calatis comitiis

was made before the curiate assembly

which especially bore the name of comitia

curiata and which met on two fixed days

of the year. The curiate assemblies were

the oldest assemblies of the people in the

royal era, assemblies of the patricians, into

which plebeians were not admitted

because in this early period of Roman

history, plebeians had no political rights

[12], the need to make a will before the

people’s assembly, divided into 30 curiae,

being the most obvious evidence of how

ancient the Calatis comitiis testament was.

This was also called comitia calata from

calare- to convoke.

These were summoned by the calator,

i.e. the lictor in the service of the pontiffs,

and these gatherings thus reconvened by

pontiffs were aimed not only at making

decisions regarding submitted laws,

declaring war, sentencing a Roman citizen

to death but also to carrying out

testaments. The presidency was held by the

religious leader - at first the king, later on

the rex sacrorum during the Republic, and

then replaced by pontifex maximus – who

was under the supervision of the college of

pontiffs [23] under whose control were the

cults as well as the religious authority.

Their meeting was held twice a year,

probably on the 24th March and 24th May,

as the old Roman calendar indicates,

Q.R.C.F.: quando rex comitiavit fas, when

it was allowed by the sacred authority that

the king organize these meeting, in front

of whom the testator could declare his/her

will.

These days were preceded by 23rd

March and 23rd May, the day in which the

ceremony of cleaning the trumpets used to

convene the people to the assemblies that

took place. Moreover, the commissions

were announced trinum nundinum, 3 to 8

days before, on the days of March 1st and

May 1st.

Regarding the data concerning the

comitia calata, there have been objections,

stating that a more rational division would

have been more comfortable, however it is