VOTA PUBLICA
VOTA PUBLICA These rested on the same principle as the vows
and votive offerings made at critical moments, and after an escape from
danger by private persons, which have been described under
DONARIA The public vows were
made in time of war (
Liv. 5.21,
36.2,
42.28; cf.
Ov. Fast. 5.573); or of pestilence (
Liv. 4.25,
40.37,
41.21). A clause often occurs to the effect that
the vow is made on condition that the state should be free from trouble for
five or for ten years, and such vows are called
vota
quinquennalia or
decennalia
(
Liv. 21.62;
30.2,.27; 31.9; 42.28).
The things vowed, as may be seen from the above passages, were of various
kinds, offerings at shrines or at pulvinaria, a tithe of the spoil, votive
games [
LUDI p. 84
b], or a temple. The most remarkable of all vows was
the
VER SACRUM which has
been described in a separate article.
The consul or praetor who had been ordered by the senate
suscipere votum (i.e. to undertake the obligation), or the
dictator in times of a dictatorship, publicly announced (
nuncupavit)
[p. 2.982]the vow and its object in formal words dictated to
him by the Pontifex Maximus (
Liv. 4.27,
36.2). In
Liv. 41.21 we
find a case where XVvir sacrorum dictates the vow, and it is announced by
the voices of the assembled people; but this, according to Mommsen, was
because the vow was intended to bind each individual, not the state as a
whole (
Staatsrecht, 1.244). Finally, the vows were entered in
the public records in the presence of witnesses (Fest. p. 173, 13). The
fulfilment of the vow at the proper time was under the charge of the
magistrate who had announced it, or of his successor, if he had vacated
office in the meantime; but it might in case of necessity devolve on another
magistrate (cf.
Liv. 36.2). When a commander in
the field made a vow, the senate afterwards determined how much money should
be assigned for its discharge from the treasury or from the spoils which
would otherwise be paid into the treasury (
Liv.
39.5;
40.44).
Besides these extraordinary public vows, there was an annual
votum publicum (of victims to be offered) made by
the new consuls on Jan. 1st, “pro reipublicae salute” (the
“sollemnis votorum nuncupatio” in
Liv.
21.63; to this also must be referred the “sollemnia
precatus” in the letter of Tiberius,
Tac. Ann. 4.70). After the end of the Republic a special vow was
added for the emperor's safety (
D. C. 51.19).
In order, however (as Mommsen thinks), to avoid confusion between the vow
for the emperor and that for the state, the 3rd of January became the day
for the “votum pro salute principis” ; and this day accordingly
appears in the Calendars and elsewhere as
votorum
nuncupatio or simply as
vota
(
C. I. L. i. p. 334;
Tac. Ann.
16.22; Capitolin.
Pert. 6). In the Greek writers
it is called
ἡμέρα τῶν εὐχῶν (
D. C. 79.8). It was observed in the provinces as
well as at Rome (
Plin. Ep. 10.35,
36), and the practice was so far extended
that we find
vota for various occasions
concerning the emperor, his return, his birthday, &c. (see numerous
instances in Marquardt), and further for various members of the imperial
family. Hence if a private person (as Sejanus) allowed his own name to be
added, it was construed as a treasonable usurpation of imperial power (
D. C. 58.3; cf. 75.14). For further details, see
Marquardt,
Staatsverw. iii. pp. 265-268; Mommsen,
Staatsrecht, 1.244, 2.810.
[
G.E.M]
