Proscriptio
(from
proscribere, “to advertise for sale”). From
the time of Sulla (B.C. 82) it came to mean the sale of the property of those whom he had
condemned to death and who were themselves styled
proscripti. During the
civil strife of the following fifty years, other leaders used the precedent thus established
as a means of weakening the opposing party. A famous proscription is that of the Second
Triumvirate (B.C. 43), under which Cicero was put to death. See
Cicero;
Sulla.