Duo Viri
“The two men”; a name applied to various magistrates and commissioners
at Rome and in the
coloniae and
municipii. The form
duumvir, “one of the two men,” is used in the
singular (
Liv. ii. 42, 5, etc.); it is
doubtful whether
duumviri should ever be used in the plural. Some editors
print it so, but in the MSS. and inscriptions we generally find only
iiviri; in
C. I. L. i. 1196 we have
duo viri, and
also
duo vir (cf.
C. I. L. vi. 3732); but there seems to
be no epigraphic authority for
duumviri. That Cicero knew only
tres viri, not
triumviri, is shown by
Ep.
Fam. viii. 13, 2. The most important of these “commissions of two”
were the following:
1.
Duo viri Iuri Dicundo, the highest magistrates in the municipal
towns.
2.
Duo viri Sacrörum, to whom was at first intrusted the
charge of the Sibylline Books (q. v.) (cf.
Liv.iii. 10Liv., 7). The commission was afterwards made to consist of ten (
Liv. vi. 37, 12;
42,
2), and subsequently, probably by Sulla , of fifteen.
3.
Duo viri navāles, an extraordinary commission appointed
for the purpose of equipping or repairing a fleet (Mommsen,
Röm.
Staatsr. ii. 565).
4.
Duo viri aedi dedicandae, elected by the people for the purpose
of dedicating a temple. The duty was always performed by one of the two only, and the
election of a second seems to have been due solely to the desire of the Romans to have two
colleagues in each magistracy (
Liv.vii. 28Liv., xxii. 33Liv., xxxv. 41). The
duo
viri aedi locandae, who gave out the contract for the erection of a temple, were not
necessarily the same as those who dedicated it (cf.
Liv. xxii. 33
with
xxiii. 21, 7), although they frequently were.
5.
Duo viri viis extra urbem purgandis were officers under the
aediles, first mentioned in the Lex Iulia Municipalis, and possibly therefore instituted by
Caesar. They were abolished by Augustus when the
curatores viarum were
instituted (Dio , liv. 26).
6.
Duo viri perduelliōnis. (See
Perduellio.)
7.
Duo viri quinquennāles, the censors in the municipia.
