Acta Diurna

Last updated

Acta Diurna (Latin: Daily Acts, sometimes translated as Daily Public Records or poetically as Daily Gazette) were daily Roman official notices, a sort of daily gazette. [1] They were carved on stone or metal and presented in message boards in public places such as the Forum of Rome. They also were called simply Acta. In many ways, they functioned like an early newspaper for the Roman citizenry. The Acta were begun in 59 BC and continued until AD 222. [2]

Contents

History

Acta Diurna, also called Acta Populi, Acta Publica, and simply Acta or Diurna, in ancient Rome was a sort of daily government gazette, containing an officially authorized narrative of noteworthy events at Rome. [3] Its contents were partly official (court news, decrees of the Roman emperor, Roman Senate, and Roman magistrates), and partly private (notices of births, marriages, and deaths). Thus, to some extent it filled the place of the modern newspaper. [3]

The origin of the Acta is attributed to Julius Caesar, who first ordered the keeping and publishing of the acts of the people by public officers (59 B.C.; Suetonius, Caesar, 20). The Acta were drawn up from day to day, and exposed in a public place on a whitened board called an Album . After remaining there for a reasonable time they were taken down and preserved with other public documents, so that they might be available for purposes of research. [3]

The Acta differed from the Annals (which were discontinued in 133 BC) in that only the greater and more important matters were given in the latter, while in the former things of less note were recorded. Their publication continued till the transference of the seat of the empire to Constantinople. There are no genuine fragments extant. [3]

Sometimes scribes made copies of the Acta and sent them to governors for information. Later emperors used them to announce royal or senatorial decrees and events of the court. Other forms of Acta were legal, municipal, and military notices.[ citation needed ]

Acta Diurna introduced the expression “publicare et propagare”, which means "make public and propagate". This expression was set in the end of the texts and proclaimed a release to both Roman citizens and non-citizens.[ citation needed ]

Legacy

Today, there are many academic periodicals with the word acta in their titles (the publisher Elsevier has 64 such titles). Acta Diurna was used as the title of a Latin newspaper, published by Centaur Books.[ citation needed ]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Aedile</span> Office of the Roman Republic

Aedile was an elected office of the Roman Republic. Based in Rome, the aediles were responsible for maintenance of public buildings and regulation of public festivals. They also had powers to enforce public order and duties to ensure the city of Rome was well supplied and its civil infrastructure well maintained, akin to modern local government.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Philippi</span> Ancient city in eastern Macedonia, in the Edonis region

Philippi was a major Greek city northwest of the nearby island, Thasos. Its original name was Crenides after its establishment by Thasian colonists in 360/359 BC. The city was renamed by Philip II of Macedon in 356 BC and abandoned in the 14th century after the Ottoman conquest. The present village of Filippoi is located near the ruins of the ancient city and is part of the region of East Macedonia and Thrace in Kavala, Greece. The archaeological site was classified as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2016 because of its exceptional Roman architecture, its urban layout as a smaller reflection of Rome itself, and its importance in early Christianity.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tiberius</span> Roman emperor from AD 14 to 37

Tiberius Julius Caesar Augustus was Roman emperor from AD 14 until 37. He succeeded his stepfather Augustus, the first Roman emperor. Tiberius was born in Rome in 42 BC to Roman politician Tiberius Claudius Nero and his wife, Livia Drusilla. In 38 BC, Tiberius' mother divorced his father and married Augustus. Following the untimely deaths of Augustus' two grandsons and adopted heirs, Gaius and Lucius Caesar, Tiberius was designated Augustus' successor. Prior to this, Tiberius had proved himself an able diplomat, and one of the most successful Roman generals: his conquests of Pannonia, Dalmatia, Raetia, and (temporarily) parts of Germania laid the foundations for the empire's northern frontier.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">50s BC</span>

This article concerns the period 59 BC – 50 BC.

Year 59 BC was a year of the pre-Julian Roman calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Caesar and Bibulus. The denomination 59 BC for this year has been used since the early medieval period, when the Anno Domini calendar era became the prevalent method in Europe for naming years.

<i>Pontifex maximus</i> Chief high priest in ancient Rome

The pontifex maximus was the chief high priest of the College of Pontiffs in ancient Rome. This was the most important position in the ancient Roman religion, open only to patricians until 254 BC, when a plebeian first held this position. Although in fact the most powerful office in the Roman priesthood, the pontifex maximus was officially ranked fifth in the ranking of the highest Roman priests, behind the rex sacrorum and the flamines maiores.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Senate of the Roman Republic</span> Governing and advisory assembly of the aristocracy

The Senate was the governing and advisory assembly of the aristocracy in the ancient Roman Republic. It was not an elected body, but one whose members were appointed by the consuls, and later by the censors, which were appointed by the aristocratic Centuriate Assembly. After a Roman magistrate served his term in office, it usually was followed with automatic appointment to the Senate. According to the Greek historian Polybius, the principal source on the Constitution of the Roman Republic, the Roman Senate was the predominant branch of government. Polybius noted that it was the consuls who led the armies and the civil government in Rome, and it was the Roman assemblies which had the ultimate authority over elections, legislation, and criminal trials. However, since the Senate controlled money, administration, and the details of foreign policy, it had the most control over day-to-day life. The power and authority of the Senate derived from precedent, the high caliber and prestige of the senators, and the Senate's unbroken lineage, which dated back to the founding of the Republic in 509 BC. It developed from the Senate of the Roman Kingdom, and became the Senate of the Roman Empire.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Volsci</span> Italic Osco-Umbrian tribe in Ancient Italy

The Volsci were an Italic tribe, well known in the history of the first century of the Roman Republic. At the time they inhabited the partly hilly, partly marshy district of the south of Latium, bounded by the Aurunci and Samnites on the south, the Hernici on the east, and stretching roughly from Norba and Cora in the north to Antium in the south. Rivals of Rome for several hundred years, their territories were taken over by and assimilated into the growing republic by 300 BC. Rome's first emperor Augustus was of Volscian descent.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ancient Rome</span> Roman civilisation from the 8th century BC to the 5th century AD

In modern historiography, ancient Rome encompasses the founding of the Italian city of Rome in the 8th century BC, the Roman Kingdom, Roman Republic, Roman Empire, and the collapse of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century AD.

In ancient Rome, the fasti were chronological or calendar-based lists, or other diachronic records or plans of official and religiously sanctioned events. After Rome's decline, the word fasti continued to be used for similar records in Christian Europe and later Western culture.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Manius Acilius Glabrio (consul 191 BC)</span> Roman senator and general

Manius Acilius Glabrio was a plebeian Roman politician and general during the Republican. He served as consul in 191 BC while Rome was at war with the Seleucid Empire. He defeated Emperor Antiochus the Great at Thermopylae, helping establish Roman unipolar control over the Mediterranean, and was awarded a triumph. Credible accusations that he had embezzled spoils from his conquests in Greece while consul caused him to withdraw from his attempt to run for censor, after which he largely retired from public life.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Curiate assembly</span> Peoples assembly in ancient rome

The Curiate Assembly was the principal assembly that evolved in shape and form over the course of the Roman Kingdom until the Comitia Centuriata organized by Servius Tullius. During these first decades, the people of Rome were organized into thirty units called "Curiae". The Curiae were ethnic in nature, and thus were organized on the basis of the early Roman family, or, more specifically, on the basis of the thirty original patrician (aristocratic) clans. The Curiae formed an assembly for legislative, electoral, and judicial purposes. The Curiate Assembly passed laws, elected Consuls, and tried judicial cases. Consuls always presided over the assembly. While plebeians (commoners) could participate in this assembly, only the patricians could vote.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Roman Gaul</span> Gaul as a province of the Roman Empire

Roman Gaul refers to Gaul under provincial rule in the Roman Empire from the 1st century BC to the 5th century AD.

Acta Senatus, or Commentarii Senatus, were minutes of the discussions and decisions of the Roman Senate. Before the first consulship of Julius Caesar, minutes of the proceedings of the Senate were written and occasionally published, but unofficially; Caesar first ordered them to be recorded and issued authoritatively in the Acta Diurna. The keeping of them was continued by Augustus, but their publication was forbidden. A young senator was chosen to draw up these acta, which were kept in the imperial archives and public libraries. Special permission from the city prefect was necessary in order to examine them.

Commentarii are notes to assist the memory, or memoranda. This original idea of the word gave rise to a variety of meanings: notes and abstracts of speeches for the assistance of orators; family memorials, the origin of many of the legends introduced into early Roman history from a desire to glorify a particular family; and diaries of events occurring in their own circle kept by private individuals. An example of this is the day-book drawn up for Trimalchio in Petronius's Satyricon by his actuarius, a slave to whom the duty was specially assigned. Other commentarii were memoirs of events in which they had taken part drawn up by public men. Examples of these are the Commentaries of Caesar: Commentarii de Bello Gallico on the Gallic Wars and Commentarii de Bello Civili on the civil wars; another example is that of Cicero on his consulship. Different departments of the imperial administration and certain high functionaries kept records, which were under the charge of an official known as a commentariis. Municipal authorities also kept a register of their official acts.

Labici or Labicum or Lavicum was an ancient city of Latium, in what is now central Italy, lying in the territory of the modern Monte Compatri, about 20 km SE from Rome, on the northern slopes of the Alban Hills. Exact location of the original city is however disputed.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Octavia the Younger</span> Roman noblewoman, full-sister of Augustus

Octavia the Younger was the elder sister of the first Roman Emperor, Augustus, the half-sister of Octavia the Elder, and the fourth wife of Mark Antony. She was also the great-grandmother of the Emperor Caligula and Empress Agrippina the Younger, maternal grandmother of the Emperor Claudius, and paternal great-grandmother and maternal great-great-grandmother of the Emperor Nero.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Senate of the Roman Empire</span> Historical political institution in ancient Rome

The Senate of the Roman Empire was a political institution in the ancient Roman Empire. After the fall of the Roman Republic, the constitutional balance of power shifted from the Roman Senate to the Roman Emperor. Beginning with the first emperor, Augustus, the Emperor and the Senate were technically two co-equal branches of government. In practice, however, the actual authority of the imperial Senate was negligible, as the Emperor held the true power of the state. As such, membership in the senate became sought after by individuals seeking prestige and social standing, rather than actual authority. During the reigns of the first Emperors, legislative, judicial, and electoral powers were all transferred from the "Roman assemblies" to the Senate. However, since the control that the Emperor held over the senate was absolute, the Senate acted as a vehicle through which the Emperor exercised his autocratic powers.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Patronage in ancient Rome</span> Social relationship

Patronage (clientela) was the distinctive relationship in ancient Roman society between the patronus ("patron") and their cliens ("client"). The relationship was hierarchical, but obligations were mutual. The patron was the protector, sponsor, and benefactor of the client; the technical term for this protection was patrocinium. Although typically the client was of inferior social class, a patron and client might even hold the same social rank, but the former would possess greater wealth, power, or prestige that enabled him to help or do favors for the client. From the emperor at the top to the commoner at the bottom, the bonds between these groups found formal expression in legal definition of patrons' responsibilities to clients. Patronage relationship were not exclusively between two people and also existed between a general and his soldiers, a founder and colonists, and a conqueror and a dependent foreign community.

An album, in ancient Rome, was a board chalked or painted white, on which decrees, edicts and other public notices were inscribed in black.

References

  1. "Acta Diurna". Encyclopedia Britannica.
  2. Wright, Brian (2016). "Ancient Rome's Daily News Publication With Some Likely Implications for Early Christian Studies". Tyndale Bulletin. 67. doi: 10.53751/001c.29414 . S2CID   239948306 . Retrieved June 2, 2020.
  3. 1 2 3 4 Wikisource-logo.svg One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain :  Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Acta Diurna". Encyclopædia Britannica . Vol. 1 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 159.