Note 1164 — Chapter V · CONSULSHIP OF CÆSAR AND BIBULUS. (695.)
Reading edition
Fragments of the Julian law, De Repetundis, preserved in the Digest, XLVIII. tit. XI.
The law is directed against those who, holding a magistracy, an embassy, or any other office, or forming part of the attendants of these functionaries, receive money.
They may receive money to any amount from their cousins, their still nearer relatives, or their wives.
The law includes those who have received money: For speaking in the Senate or any public assembly; for doing their duty or absenting themselves from it; for refusing to obey a public order or for exceeding it; for pronouncing judgment in a criminal or a civil case, or for not pronouncing it; for condemning or acquitting; for awarding or withdrawing the subject of a suit; for adjudging or taking an object in litigation; for appointing a judge or arbitrator, changing him, ordering him to judge, or for not appointing him or changing him, and not ordering him to judge; for causing a man to be imprisoned, put in irons, or set at liberty; for accusing or not accusing; for producing or suppressing a witness; for recognising as complete an unfinished public work; for accepting wheat for the use of the State without testing its good quality; for taking upon himself the maintenance of the public buildings without a certificate of their good condition; for enlisting a soldier or discharging him.
All that has been given to the proconsul or prætor contrary to the provisions of the present law, cannot become his by right of possession.
Sales and leases are declared null and void which have been made, for a high or a low price, with a view to right of possession by a third.
The magistrates are to abstain from all extortion, and receive as salary but 100 pieces of gold each year.
The action will lie equally against the heirs of the accused, but only during the year succeeding his death.
No one who has been condemned under this law can be either judge, accuser, or witness.
The penalties are exile, banishment to an island, or death, according to the gravity of the offence.