Roman Law and the Legal World of the Romans

Civil Procedure

would not necessarily be a legal specialist. The praetor’s job was to arrange for a judge ( iudex ) and to produce directions to that judge (the formula ). The formula specified (a) the identity of the parties; (b) the basic question to be decided (the inten tio ); (c) special defenses, responses to these, responses to the responses, and so on; and (d) the stakes to be decided. The fol lowing is a fairly full formula (see also [26] ): Let Titius be appointed judge. If it appears that Aulus Agerius deposited a silver table with Numerius Negidius and that the same was not returned to Aulus Agerius by the bad faith of Numerius Negidius, let the judge condemn Numerius Negidius to pay the value of the matter to Aulus Agerius. If it does not so appear, absolve him. (Aulus Agerius and Numerius Negidius are standard place holder names for the plaintiff and defendant, respectively, in Roman law texts, something like the Latin equivalent of John Doe and Richard Roe. Titius serves similarly for the judge.) Many of the defenses and responses were standard ones that could be cut and pasted together with a variety of different kinds of intentio . So, for instance, the intentio would be slightly different depending on whether a case involved a sale or a rental, but the exception that would allow you to get out of a contract made under duress would be the same for both. The stakes were generally defined in terms of monetary damages, and, depending on the issue of the case, the praetor might specify a precise amount, set an upper limit, or leave the value to the judge’s discretion. Finally, one or both parties might be

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