probably means simply "requests for cognisance" made to the Princeps. The imperial jurisdiction in matters of trust (fidei commissa) was delegated to consuls or to praetors.[1] But, apart from this regular delegation, the Emperor might instruct any one to be his judex extra ordinem, when he did not care to take the case himself.
The appeal from provincial governors was, so far as the public or senatorial provinces were concerned, the result of a conscious striving after unity of administration, although it was not wholly unconnected with Republican precedents; with respect to Caesar's provinces, it was a direct consequence of the fact that the governors of these provinces were merely his legates, although the frequency with which the appeal was allowed shows the same striving for a centralised jurisdiction. The principle which in the early Principate regulated appeals from the public provinces was that these should come invariably to the Senate, and this principle of the dyarchy, which tended to be disregarded, was emphatically restated by Nero at the commencement of his reign.[2] It was probably a development of a Republican custom in accordance with which certain important cases had been summoned from the provinces to Rome by the consuls and Senate (Romam revocatio);[3] but this principle seems to have been now extended to include true cases of appeal as well as cases of denial of jurisdiction. When such appeals in civil matters came to Rome, it is probable that the Senate delegated the hearing of them to the consuls.
The fact that this principle of the appellate jurisdiction of the Senate required restatement in 54 A.D. prepares us for the ultimate neglect into which it fell. It is certain that by the close of the second and beginning of the third century, Caesar, or his great delegate the praefect of the praetorian guard, is the universal court of appeal for the whole provincial world. This result cannot be attached to any power possessed by the Princeps
- [Footnote: delegabat urbis is untenable has been pointed out by Mommsen (Staatsr. ii. p. 985
note 1).]
- ↑ For the delegation to praetors see p. 368; for that to consuls cf. Quint. Inst. Or. iii. 6, 70 "Non debes apud praetorem petere fidei commissum sed apud consules, major enim praetoria cognitione summa est."
- ↑ Tac. Ann. xiii. 4 "teneret antiqua munia senatus, consulum tribunalibus Italia et publicae provinciae adsisterent."
- ↑ Cic. in Verr. iii. 60, 138; ad Fam. xiii. 26, 3; Fragmentum Atestinum (Bruns Fontes) l. 10.
