AUCTĬO signifies generally “an increasing, an enhancement,” and hence the name is applied to a public sale of goods, at which persons bid against one another. The sale was sometimes conducted by an _argentarius_, or by a _magister auctionis_; and the time, place, and conditions of sale, were announced either by a public notice (_tabula_, _album_, &c.), or by a crier (_praeco_). The usual phrases to express the giving notice of a sale were, _auctionem proscribere, praedicare_; and to determine on a sale, _auctionem constituere_. The purchasers (_emtores_), when assembled, were sometimes said _ad tabulam adesse_. The phrases signifying to bid are, _liceri_, _licitari_, which was done either by word of mouth, or by such significant hints as are known to all people who have attended an auction. The property was said to be knocked down (_addici_) to the purchaser. The praeco, or crier, seems to have acted the part of the modern auctioneer, so far as calling out the biddings, and amusing the company. Slaves, when sold by auction, were placed on a stone, or other elevated thing, as is the case when slaves are sold in the United States of North America; and hence the phrase _homo de lapide emtus_. It was usual to put up a spear (_hasta_) in auctions; a symbol derived, it is said, from the ancient practice of selling under a spear the booty acquired in war. AUCTOR, a word which contains the same element as _aug-eo_, and signifies generally one who enlarges, confirms, or gives to a thing its completeness and efficient form. The numerous technical significations of the word are derivable from this general notion. As he who gives to a thing that which is necessary for its completeness may in this sense be viewed as the chief actor or doer, the word auctor is also used in the sense of one who originates or proposes a thing; but this cannot be viewed as its primary meaning. Accordingly, the word auctor, when used in connection with lex or senatus consultum, often means him who originates and proposes.--The expressions _patres auctores fiunt_, _patres auctores facti_, have given rise to much discussion. In the earlier periods of the Roman state, the word _patres_ was equivalent to _patricii_; in the later period, when the patricians had lost all importance as a political body, the term patres signified the senate. Hence some ambiguity has arisen. The expression _patres auctores fiunt_, when used of the early period of Rome, means that the determinations of the populus in the comitia centuriata were confirmed by the patricians in the comitia curiata. Till the time of Servius Tullius there were only the comitia curiata, and this king first established the comitia centuriata, in which the plebs also voted, and consequently it was not till after this time that the phrase _patres auctores fiunt_ could be properly applied. Livy, however, uses it of an earlier period. The comitia curiata first elected the king, and then by