another vote conferred upon him the imperium. The latter was called _lex curiata de imperio_, an expression not used by Livy, who employs instead the phrase _patres auctores fiunt_ (Liv. i. 17, 22, 32).--After the exile of the last Tarquin, the patres, that is the patricians, had still the privilege of confirming at the comitia curiata the vote of the comitia centuriata, that is, they gave to it the _patrum auctoritas_; or, in other words, the _patres_ were _auctores facti_. In the fifth century of the city a change was made. By one of the laws of the plebeian dictator Q. Publilius Philo, it was enacted that in the case of leges to be enacted at the comitia centuriata, the _patres_ should be _auctores_, that is, the curiae should give their assent before the vote of the comitia centuriata. By a lex Maenia of uncertain date the same change was made as to elections.--But both during the earlier period and afterwards no business could be brought before the comitia without first receiving the sanction of the senate; and accordingly the phrase _patres auctores fiunt_ came now to be applied to the approval of a measure by the senate before it was confirmed by the votes of the people. This preliminary approval was also termed _senatus auctoritas_.--When the word auctor is applied to him who recommends but does not originate a legislative measure, it is equivalent to _suasor_. Sometimes both auctor and suasor are used in the same sentence, and the meaning of each is kept distinct. With reference to dealings between individuals, auctor has the sense of owner. In this sense auctor is the seller (_venditor_), as opposed to the buyer (_emtor_): and hence we have the phrase _a malo auctore emere_. Auctor is also used generally to express any person under whose authority any legal act is done. In this sense, it means a tutor who is appointed to aid or advise a woman on account of the infirmity of her sex. AUCTŌRĀMENTUM, the pay of gladiators. [GLADIATORES.] AUCTŌRĬTAS. The technical meanings of this word correlate with those of auctor. The auctoritas senatus was not a senatus-consultum; it was a measure, incomplete in itself, which received its completion by some other authority. Auctoritas, as applied to property, is equivalent to legal ownership, being a correlation of auctor.