Dictionary of Greek and Roman antiquities. Ed. by William Smith. Illustrated by numerous engravings on wood.

ACTIO. ACTIO. 9
there was a celebrated temple of Apollo at Actinm, various forms of actions, probably for hlis own use
which is mentioned by Thucydides (i. 29), and and that of his friends: the manuscript was stolen
Strabo (vii. p. 325), and which was enlarged by or copied by his scribe Cn. Flavius, who made it
Augustus. The games instituted by Augustus public: and thus, according to the story, the plewere celebrated every four years (7res'aersqpit, beians became acquainted with those legal forms
ludi quinquennales); they received the title of a which hitherto had been the exclusive property of
sacred Agon, and were also called Olympia. (Strab. the patricians. (Cic. De Orat. i. 41, pro Mlurena,. c.; I)ion Cass. li. 1.; Suet. Aug. 18; Bickh, c. 11; Dig. 1. tit. 2. s. 2. ~ 7.)
Corp. Inser. No. 1720, p. 845; Krause, Olympia, Upon the old legal actions being abolished, it
p. 221.) became the practice to prosecute suits according to
A'CTIO is defined by Celsus (Dig. 44. tit. 7. certain prescribed forms or formulae, as they were
5. 51) to be the right of pursuing by judicial means called, which will be explained after we have
(judicio) what is a man's due. noticed various divisions of actions, as they are made
With respect to its subject-matter, the actio was by the Roman writers.
divided into two great divisions, the in personam The division of actiones in the Roman law is
actio, and the in rem actio. The in persosnam actio somewhat complicated, and some of the divisions
was against a person who was bound to the must be considered rather as emanating from the
plaintiff by contract or delict, that is, when the schools of the rhetoricians than from any other
claim against such person was' dare, facere, praes- source. But this division, though complicated,
tare oportere;' the in rein actio applied to those may be somewhat simplified, or at least rendered
cases where a man claimed a corporal thing (cor- more intelligible, if we consider that an action is a
poralis res) as his property, or claimed a right, as claim or demand made by one person against
for instance the use and enjoyment of a thing, or another, and that in order to be a valid legal claim
the right to a road over a piece of ground (actus). it must be founded on a legal right. The main
The in rems actio was called vindicatio; the in per- division of actions must therefore have a reference
sonam actio was called in the later law condictio, or analogy to the main division of rights; for in
because originally the plaintiff gave the defendant every system of law the form of the action must
notice to appear on a given day for the purpose of be the expression of the legal right. Now the
choosing a judex. (Gaius, iv. 5.) general division of rights in the Roman law is into
The old actions of the Roman law were called rights of dominion or ownership, which are rights
leqis actiozes, or legitimae, either because they were against the whole world, and into rights arising
expressly provided for by laws (leyes), or because from contract, and quasi contract, and delict. The
they were strictly adapted to the words of the laws, actio in remn implies a complainant, who claims a
aud therefore could not be varied. In like manner, certain right against every person who may disthe old writs in England contained the matter or pute it, and the object and end of the action are to
claim of the plaintiff expressed according to the compel an acknowledgment of the right by the
legal rule.d particular person who disputes it. By this action
The five modes of proceeding by legal action as the plaintiff maintains his property in or to a thing,
named and described by Gaius (iv. 12), were, or his rights to a benefit from a thing (se vit/ifes).
Sacramento, Per judicis postulationem, Per con- Thus the actio in rein is not so called on account
dictionem, Per manus injectionem, Per pignoris of the subject-matter of the action, but the term is a
capionem. technical phrase to express an action which is in no
But these forms of action gradually fell into dis- way founded on contract, and therefore has no deuse, in consequence of the excessive nicety required, terminate individual as the other necessary party
and the failure consequent on the slightest error to the action; but every individual who disputes
in the pleadings; of which there is a notable ex- the right becomes, by such act of disputing, a party
ample given by Gaius himself (iv. 11), in the case liable to such action. The actio in rein does not
of a plaintiff who complained of his vines (vites) ascertain the complainant's right, and from the
being cut down, and was told that his action was nature of the action the complainant's right cannot
bad, inasmuch as he ought to have used the term be ascertained by it, for it is a right against all the
trees (arbores) and not vines; because the law of the world; but the action determines that the defendant
Twelve Tables, which gave him the action for damage has or has not a claim which is valid against the
to his vines, contained only the general expression plaintiff's claim. The actio in personams implies a
"'trees" (arbores). The Lex Aebutia and two determinate person or persons against whonm the
Leges Juliae abolished the old legitimae actiones, action lies, the right of the plaintiff being founded
except in the case of dacsznurz im'iU/' [DAiM SUIm on the acts of the defendant or defendants: it is,
INFECTUM], and in matters which fell under the therefore, in respect of something which has been
cognizance of the Centumviri. [CENTUrV1mwm.] agreed to be done, or in respect of some injury for
In the old Roman constitution, the knowledge which the plaintiff claims compensation. The actio
of the law was closely connected with the insti- mii tae of Jlustinian's legislation (Inst. iv. tit. 6, s. 20)
tutes and ceremonial of religion, and was accord- was so called from its being supposed to partake of:
ingly in the hands of the patricians alone, whose the nature of the actio in rein and the act/o in peraid their clients were obliged to ask in all their sonama. Such was the action among co-heirs as to
legal dispultes. Appius Claudius Caecus, perhaps the division of the inheritance, and the action for
one of the earliest writers on law, drew up the the purpose of settling boundaries which were
confused.
" "Breve quidem cum sit formatum ad simili- Rights, and the modes of enforcing them, may
tudinem regulae juris, quia breviter et paucis verbis also be viewed with reference to the sources from
intentionem proferentis exponit et explanat, sicut which they flow. Thus, the rights of Roman
regula juris,remquae estbreviter enarrat." (Bracton, citizens flowed in part from the sovereign power,
~ 1 3.) in part from-those to whom power was delegated.