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ER 2127
The Emperors Gratian, Valentinian II, and Theodosius issue a law making attendance in the municipal council obligatory. Clerical duties, however, are a valid excuse for absence. The law was issued on 15 February 381 in Carthage, and included in the Theodosian Code published in 438 (12.1.84).
12.1.84
 
IDEM AAA. AD CAMENIUM VIC(ARIUM) AFR(ICAE). In nominationibus a singulis quibusque ordinibus celebrandis dudum expressae quantitatis modum eatenus volumus custodiri, ut eorum in duabus, quae concilio adesse debent, partibus numerus derogetur, quos aut obtentus debilitatis alienat aut senectus pigra remoratur aut clericatus obsequia vindicarunt aut crimen desertionis absentat, ut ex reliquo numero duabus tertiis supputandis. P(RO)P(OSITA) KARTHAG(INE) XV KAL. MART. SYAGRIO ET EVCHERIO CONSS.
 
(ed. Mommsen 1905: 683)
12.1.84
 
The same Augustuses to Camenius, Vicar of Africa.
When nominations are to be duly held by each individual municipal senate, it is Our will that the proportion of the entire number as previously designated shall be observed in such a way that in determining the two thirds of the body which must be present for a meeting of the council, the number shall be subtracted of those persons who are removed on the plea of debility or who are delayed by the slowness of old age or who are claimed by the duties of the clergy or who are absent because of the crime of desertion, and the required two thirds shall be computed from the number that is left. Posted at Carthage on the fifteenth day before the kalends of March in the year of the consulship of Syagrius and Eucherius. February 15, 381.
 
(trans. Pharr 1952: 355)

Discussion:

The emperors are named in 12.1.80.

Place of event:

Region
  • East
  • Latin North Africa
City
  • Constantinople
  • Carthage

About the source:

Title: Codex Theodosianus, Code of Theodosius, Theodosian Code
Origin: Constantinople (East), Carthage (Latin North Africa)
Denomination: Catholic/Nicene/Chalcedonian
The Theodosian Code is a compilation of the Roman legislation from the times of the Emperor Constantine to the times of Theodosius II. The work was begun in 427 and finished in autumn 437 when it was accepted for publication. It was promulgated in February 438 and came into effect from the beginning of the year 439.
 
The compilation consist of sixteen books in which all imperial constitutions are gathered beginning with the year 312. Books 1-5 did not survive and are reconstructed from the manuscripts of the Lex Romana Visigothorum, i.e. the Breviary of Alaric, the legal corpus published in 506 by the Visigothic king, Alaric, containing excerpts from the Theodosian Code equipped with explanatory notes (interpretationes), post-Theodosian novels and several other juristic texts.
 
A new compilation was undertaken during the reign of the emperor Justinian. A committee of ten persons prepared and promulgated the Codex in 529. It was quickly outdated because of the legislative activities of the emperor and therefore its revised version had to be published in 534. The Codex together with the novels, the Pandecta, a digest of juristic writings, and the Institutes, an introductory handbook are known under the medieval name "Corpus Iuris Civilis".
Edition:
Theodor Mommsen and Paul Martin Meyer (eds.), Theodosiani libri XVI cum constitutionibus Sirmondianis et leges novellae ad Theodosianum pertinentes, 2 vols., Berlin 1905
Paul Krüger (ed.), Codex Iustinianus, Berlin 1877
Gustav Hänel (ed.), Lex Romana Visigothorum, Leipzig 1849
 
Translation:
The Theodosian Code and Novels and the Sirmondian Constitutions, a translation with commentary, glossary, and bibliography by C. Pharr, Princeton 1952
Bibliography:
(all those entries with extenstive, recent bibliography)
 
 

Categories:

Social origin or status - Social elite
    Described by a title - Clericus
      Public functions and offices before ordination
        Public functions and offices after ordination - Civic office
          Public law - Secular
            Please quote this record referring to its author, database name, number, and, if possible, stable URL: M. Szada, Presbyters in the Late Antique West, ER2127, http://www.presbytersproject.ihuw.pl/index.php?id=6&SourceID=2127
            Record by: Marta Szada
            last edited: 2019-08-12 10:32:37
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