Gaius Ateius Capito

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Gaius Ateius Capito († 22 AD) was a Roman jurist of the Augustan and Tiberian times. He was the grandson of a centurion who had served under Sulla .

Capito received his professional training as a student of Aulus Ofilius . In addition to his legal work, he was politically active as a senator and reached the high point of his career with the suffect consulate in 5 AD. From 13 AD he was the second curator aquarum after Marcus Valerius Messalla Corvinus for securing the Roman water supply and responsible for the maintenance of natural and artificial watercourses in the urban area of ​​Rome. In this capacity he worked out a plan in 15 AD together with Lucius Arruntius for the relocation of the Tiber to effectively protect the city from flooding, but the proposed measures were rejected by the Senate after major resistance from the population. In 23 he was replaced as curator aquarum by Lucius Tarius Rufus . In contrast to his contemporary and specialist colleague Antistius Labeo , Ateius Capito was an ardent supporter of the Augustan principate .

Ateius Capito was regarded as an outstanding legal scholar, who was said to be particularly competent in the field of pontifical and sacral law . So he had 17 BC In order to legalize the desired holding of secular games for Augustus , the corresponding sacral law interpretation of a Sibylle oracle was made. During his work he gathered a larger group of students around him, from which the Sabinian law school, named after his student and successor Masurius Sabinus , later emerged. Capito's writings are almost entirely lost. Only a few work titles and fragments from indirect quotations by later authors are known:

  • De pontificio iure ("On pontifical law"), at least 6 books on the law connected with the office of pontifices ,
  • De iure sacrificiorum ("On the right to sacrifice " or "On sacred law"),
  • Coniectanea ("miscellaneous") in at least nine books, each of which apparently had its own subtitle,
  • De officio senatorio ("About the Senatorial Office"),
  • a work on augural law (title unknown),
  • Epistulae ("letters"), presumably on legal issues.

Ateius also seems to have written about the Roman water supply, because Frontinus, one of his successors, wrote: "As I read from Ateius Capito, it remained with this regulation later, when under Augustus the water supply was passed to curators" [that the irrigation of the Circus Maximus was only allowed to take place with the permission of the aediles or censors .]. Despite his high reputation as a legal scholar, Capito's works, which were still widely read in the 6th century, were rarely cited by later lawyers and were rarely mentioned in the digests . In contrast, it was used more often by authors interested in antiquarian books such as Aulus Gellius or lexicographers such as Verrius Flaccus , which may indicate that his writings were more of a popular scientific nature.

The concise trait of the lawyer was later characterized by Suetonius and Tacitus as courtly to conspicuously ingratiating. Tiberius is said to have been disgusted by the flattery of the lawyer he had taken over from Augustus.

The verse poet Ovid blamed Capito for having been the responsible legal advisor who, with the legal interpretations from his work Ars amatoria, had taken care of Augustus' relegation .

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Remarks

  1. ↑ Tacitus , Annalen, 3, 75, 1 (English translation)
  2. ↑ Messalla Corvinus had been since 11 BC. The first water curator appointed by Augustus with the consent of the Senate, see Frontinus , de aquis 99f.
  3. ^ Frontinus, de aquis . 102.
  4. ^ Tacitus , Annalen 1, 79.
  5. ^ Frontinus aq . 102.
  6. ↑ Tacitus, Annalen 3, 75.
  7. ↑ Zosimos , 2, 4, 2 (Engl. Translation)
  8. ^ Frontinus, de aquis . 97.
  9. ↑ Tacitus , Annalen , 3, 70 f. (English translation)
  10. ↑ Ovid , Tristia , 2, 77 f. (English translation) , Detlef Liebs , Before the Judges of Rome, Famous Trials of Antiquity , Munich 2007, CH Beck, ISBN 9783406562969 , Ovid's banishment 8 AD.

literature

personal data
SURNAME Ateius Capito, Gaius
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Capito, Gaius Ateius
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Roman lawyer and politician
DATE OF BIRTH 1st century BC Chr.
DATE OF DEATH 22nd