3. Extracts from the Acta Senatus. 4. A court circular, containing an account of the births, deaths, festivals, and movements of the imperial family. 5. An account of such public affairs and foreign wars as the government thought proper to publish. 6. Curious and interesting occurrences, such as prodigies and miracles, the erection of new edifices, the conflagration of buildings, funerals, sacrifices, a list of the various games, and especially curious tales and adventures, with the names of the parties. ACTĬA (ἄκτια), a festival celebrated every four years at Actium in Epirus, with wrestling, horse-racing, and sea-fights, in honour of Apollo. There was a celebrated temple of Apollo at Actium. After the defeat of Antony off Actium, Augustus enlarged the temple, and instituted games to be celebrated every five years in commemoration of his victory. ACTĬO, is defined by a Roman jurist to be the right of pursuing by judicial means what is a man’s due. The old actions of the Roman law were called _legis actiones_ or _legitimae_, either because they were expressly provided for by the laws of the Twelve Tables, or because they were strictly adapted to the words of the laws, and therefore could not be varied. But these forms of action gradually fell into disuse, in consequence of the excessive nicety required, and the failure consequent on the slightest error in the pleadings, and they were eventually abolished by the Lex Aebutia, and two Leges Juliae, except in a few cases. In the old Roman constitution, the knowledge of the law was most closely connected with the institutes and ceremonial of religion, and was accordingly in the hands of the patricians alone, whose aid their clients were obliged to ask in all their legal disputes. App. Claudius Caecus, perhaps one of the earliest writers on law, drew up the various forms of actions, probably for his own use and that of his friends: the manuscript was stolen or copied by his scribe Cn. Flavius, who made it public; and thus, according to the story, the plebeians became acquainted with those legal forms which hitherto had been the exclusive property of the patricians. After the abolition of the old legal actions, a suit was prosecuted in the following manner:--An action was commenced by the plaintiff summoning the defendant to appear before the praetor or other magistrate who had _jurisdictio_; this process was called _in jus vocatio_; and, according to the laws of the Twelve Tables, was in effect a dragging of the defendant before the praetor, if he refused to go quietly; and although this rude proceeding was somewhat modified in later times, we find in the time of Horace that if the defendant would not go quietly, the plaintiff called on any bystander to witness, and dragged the defendant into court. The parties might settle their dispute on their way to the court, or the defendant might be bailed by a vindex. The vindex must not be confounded with the vades. This settlement of disputes on the way