law
lex Rupilia
The provincial constitution drawn up for Sicily in 131 BC by the consul P. Rupilius and his ten-man senatorial commission after the First Slave War — the code regulating jurisdiction, court-composition, and inter-city procedure on the island. Verres's repeated violations of its rules supply the procedural counts of In Verrem 2.2.
Reading notes
- Against Verres, Second Hearing, Book II §32 lex Rupilia
P. Rupilius's provincial charter of 132 BC, given on the advice of the ten senatorial legates after the First Servile War. It governed jurisdiction between Sicilians of different cities, between Sicilians and Romans, and between cities and individuals; the operating constitution of Sicilian justice in Cicero's day.
- Against Verres, Second Hearing, Book II §44 lex Rupilia
Verres's irregular substitution of his own consilium for the lex Rupilia's mode of allotting judges in inter-city Sicilian cases is the formal hinge of the Heraclius case.