| Title: | A (sign of absolution) |
| Original Title: | A, signe d'absolution |
| Volume and Page: | Vol. 1 (1751), p. 4 |
| Author: | Edme-François Mallet (ascribed) (biography) |
| Translator: | Mark K. Jensen [Pacific Lutheran University] |
| Original Version (ARTFL): | Link |
| Rights/Permissions: |
This text is protected by copyright and may be linked to without seeking permission. Please see http://quod.lib.umich.edu/d/did/terms.html for information on reproduction. |
| URL: | http://hdl.handle.net/2027/spo.did2222.0003.414 |
| Citation (MLA): | Mallet, Edme-François (ascribed). "A (sign of absolution)." The Encyclopedia of Diderot & d'Alembert Collaborative Translation Project. Translated by Mark K. Jensen. Ann Arbor: Michigan Publishing, University of Michigan Library, 2017. Web. [fill in today's date in the form 18 Apr. 2009 and remove square brackets]. <http://hdl.handle.net/2027/spo.did2222.0003.414>. Trans. of "A, signe d'absolution," Encyclopédie ou Dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers, vol. 1. Paris, 1751. |
| Citation (Chicago): | Mallet, Edme-François (ascribed). "A (sign of absolution)." The Encyclopedia of Diderot & d'Alembert Collaborative Translation Project. Translated by Mark K. Jensen. Ann Arbor: Michigan Publishing, University of Michigan Library, 2017. http://hdl.handle.net/2027/spo.did2222.0003.414 (accessed [fill in today's date in the form April 18, 2009 and remove square brackets]). Originally published as "A, signe d'absolution," Encyclopédie ou Dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers, 1:4 (Paris, 1751). |
A, sign of absolution , among the Romans in criminal cases, was a sign to declare that an accused person was innocent. This is why Cicero in the oration for Milo calls A a favorable letter, littera salutaris. When it came time for a verdict to condemn or delay judgment on someone accused, [1] each magistrate, or pronouncer, received three ballots, one of which bore an A meaning absolvo, I absolve; another a C denoting condemno, I condemn; and on the third there was an N and an L, non liquet, [2] that is, the fact or the crime in question does not seem obvious to me. The praetor pronounced judgment according to the number of ballots that were in the urn. The last [3] was only used when the accused had not been able entirely to clear himself, yet did not appear absolutely guilty; it was what we call un plus amplement informé . [4] But if the number of these three kinds of ballots turned out to be exactly the same, the judges were inclined to clemency and the accused was entirely relieved of the accusation. Also, Cicero tells us that ballots intended for this use were counters of a sort, made of thin and polished wood buffed with wax on which were written the letters mentioned above, ceratam unicuique tabellam dari cerâ legitimâ. [5] The form of the ballots can be seen on some of the ancient medals of the Cassia family. [6]
1. In the original, ‘absolved’ [ absous ], but this is evidently a contresens.
2. ‘It is not clear.’
3. I.e. N·L.
4. A technical legal term referring to an extension of the accusation beyond ordinary limits so that further inquiry can be made.
5. ‘A single waxed tablet covered with the proper wax.’ Cicero, Divinatio in Caecilium, 24.
6. A gens or clan of great antiquity that produced dozens of high Roman officials; it was considered one of the noblest of ancient Rome. Mallet spells its name Casia . It is perhaps worth noting that that the head of Liberty was the type of the medals of the family to which Mallet here refers (Charles Roach Smith, ed., A Dictionary of Roman Coins, Republican and Imperial [London: George Bell and Sons, 1889], p. 518), and that the best known member of the family, the tyrannacide Gaius Cassius Longinus, was part of the conspiracy that killed Julius Caesar in 44 BCE; his character plays a memorable part in Shakespeare’s play (“Yond Cassius has a lean and hungry look; / He thinks too much: such men are dangerous,” Julius Caesar, I, ii). (There is also a Caesia gens.)