POSTULATIO (Lat.). In Roman Law. The name of the first act in a crimi nal proceeding.
2. A person who wished to accuse another of a crime appeared before the praetor and requested his authority for that purpose, designating the person intended. This act was called postulatio. The postulant (calum nium jurabat) made oath that he was not influenced by a spirit of calumny, but acted in good faith with a view to the public interest. The przetor received this declara tion, at first made verbally, but afterwards in writing, and called a libel. The yostulatio vras posted up in the forum, to give public notice of the names of the accuser and the accused. A second accuser sometimes ap peared and went through the same formalities.
3. Other persons were allowed to appear and join the postulant or principal ac cuser. These were said postulai.e subscrip tionem, and were denominated subscriptores. Cic., in Cmcil. Divin. 15. But commonly such persons acted concurrently with the postulant, and inscribed their names at the time he first appeared. Only one accuser, however, was allowed to act ; and if the first inscribed did not desist in favor of the second, the right was determined, after discussion, by judges appointed for the purpose. Cic. in Verr. i. b. The prelimi nary proceeding was called divinatio, and is well explained in the oration of Cicero entitled Divinatio. See Aulus Gellins, Att. Noct. lib. ii. cap. 4.
4. The accuser having been determined in this manner, he appeared before the prtetor, and formally charged the accused by name, specifying the crime. This was called nonzinis et criminis delatio. The magistrate reduced it to writing, which was called inscriptio, and the accuser and his adjuncts. if any, signed it, subscribebant. This proceeding corresponds to the indict ment of the common law.
5. If the accused appeared, the accuse' formally charged him with the crime. If the accused confessed it, or stood mute, he was adjudged to .pay the penalty. If he denied it, the inscriptio contaaned his answer, and he was then in reatu (indicted, as we should say), and was called reus, and a day was fixed, ordinarily after an interval of at least ten days, according to the nature of the ease, for the appearance of the parties. In the case of Verres, Cicero obtained une hundred and ten days to prepare his proofs; although he accomplished it in fifty days, and renounced, as he might do, the advan tage of the remainder ef the time allowed him.
6. At the day appointed for the trial, the accuser aud his adjuncts or colleagues, the accused, and the judges, were summoned by the herald of the przetor. If the accuser did not appear, the case was erased from the roll. If the accused made default, he was condemned. If both parties appeared, a jury was drawn by the prwtor or judex qucestionis. The jury. was called' jurati hommes, and the drawing of them sortitio, and they were taken from a general list made out for the year. Either party had a right to object to a certain extent to the persons drawn ; and then there was a second drawing, called subsortitio, to complete the number.
I. In some tribunals qucestiones (the jury) were editi (produced) in equal number by the accuser and the accused, and sometimes by the accuser alone, and were objected to or challenged in different ways, according to the nature of the case. The number of the jury also varied according to the tribunal (qucestio): they were sworn before the trial began. Hence they were called jurati.
The accusers, and often the subscriptores, were heard, and afterwards the accused, either by himself or by his advocates, of whom he commonly had several. The wit nesses, who swore by Jupiter, gave their testimony after the discussions or during the progress of the pleadings of the accuser. In some cases it was necessary to plead the cause on the third day following the first hearing, which was called comperendinatio.
S. After the pleadings were concluded, the prwtor or the judex qucestionis distributed tablets to the jury, upon which each wrote, secretly, either the letter A (absolvo) or the letter C (condemno) or N. L. (non 'liquet). These tablets were deposited in an urn. Tho president assorted and counted the tablets. If the majority were for acquitting tbe accused, the magistrate declared it by the words fecisse non videtur, and by the words fecisse videtur if the majority were for a conviction. If the tablets marked N. L. were so many as to .prevent an absolute majority for a conviction or acquittal, the cause was put off for more ample information, ampliatio, which the prtetor declared by the word amplies. Such, in brief, was the course of proceedings before the qucestiones pe2petuce.
The forms observed in the comitia cen, turiata and comitia tributa were nearly the satne, excopt the composition of the tribunal aud the mode of declaring the vote.