DUUMVIRI or DUOVIRI, in ancient Rome, the official style of two joint magistrates. Such pairs of magistrates were appointed in Rome itself and in the colonies and municipia. (I) Duumviri iuri (iure) dicundo, municipal magistrates, whose duties were concerned with the administration of justice. (2) Duumviri quinquennales, municipal officers, who were elected every fifth year for one year to exercise the function of the cen sorship. (3) Duumviri sacrorum, officers who originally had charge of the Sibylline books (see DECEMVIRI). (4) Duumviri aedi locandae, originally officers specially appointed to supervise the erection of a temple. (5) Duumviri navales, officers appointed for the equipment of a fleet. Originally chosen by consuls or dictator, they were elected by the people after 311 B.C. (6) Duumviri perduellionis, the earliest criminal court for trying offences against the State (see TREASON : Roman Law). (7) Duumviri viis extra urbem purgandis, subordinate officers under the aediles, whose duty it was to look after those etreets which were outside the city walls. By 12 B.C. their duties were trans ferred to the Curatores viarum.
BIBLIOGRAPHY. See Fiebiger and Liebenam in Pauly-Wissowa, Bibliography. See Fiebiger and Liebenam in Pauly-Wissowa, Realencyklopiidie; A. H. J. Greenidge, Roman Public Life (1904) ; J. E.
Companion to Latin Studies (1921), with useful bibliog raphy ; W. E. Heitland, The Roman Republic (1923) .
(1556-1621), French author and lawyer, was born in Paris. Du Vair was in orders, and, though during the greater part of his life he exercised only legal func tions, he was, from 1617 till his death, bishop of Lisieux. His reputation, however, is that of a lawyer, a statesman and a man of letters. He became in 1584 counsellor of the parlement of Paris, and as deputy for Paris to the Estates of the League he pronounced his most famous politico-legal discourse, an argument nominally for the Salic law, but in reality directed against the alienation of the crown of France to the Spanish infanta. In
appeared his treatise De l'eloquence f rancaise. He was sent to England in 1S96 with the marshal de Bouillon to negotiate a league against Spain; he became (1599) first president of the parlement of Provence (Aix), and in 1616 keeper of the seals. He died at Tonneins (Lot-et-Garonne) on Aug. 3, 1621. The most celebrated of his treatises are La Philosophie morale des Stoiques, translated into English (1664) by Charles Cotton ; De la constance et consolation es calamites publiques, composed dur ing the siege of Paris in 1589, and translated into English as A Buckler against Adversitie (1622) , and La Sainte Philosophie, in which religion and philosophy are intimately connected. Pierre Charron drew freely on these and other works of Du Vair, who had a great indirect influence on the development of style in French, for Malherbe was an admirer of his writings. The re former of French poetry learned much from the treatise De l'eloquence f rancaise, to which the counsels of his friend were no doubt added.
Du Vair's works were published at Paris in 1641. See Niceron, Memoires, vol. xliii. ; and monographs by C. A. Sapey (1847 and 1858) .
