ĂDULTĔRĬUM, adultery. (1) GREEK.--Among the Athenians, if a man
caught another man in the act of criminal intercourse (μοιχεία)
with his wife, he might kill him with impunity; and the law was
also the same with respect to a concubine (παλλακή). He might also
inflict other punishment on the offender. It appears that there was
no adultery, unless a married woman was concerned. The husband might,
if he pleased, take a sum of money from the adulterer, by way of
compensation, and detain him till he found sureties for the payment.
The husband might also prosecute the adulterer in the action called
μοιχείας γραφή. If the act of adultery was proved, the husband could
no longer cohabit with his wife, under pain of losing his privileges
of a citizen (ἀτιμία). The adulteress was excluded even from those
temples which foreign women and slaves were allowed to enter; and if
she was seen there, any one might treat her as he pleased, provided
he did not kill her or mutilate her.--(2) ROMAN.--The word adulterium
properly signifies, in the Roman law, the offence committed by a
man’s having sexual intercourse with another man’s wife. _Stuprum_
(called by the Greeks φθορά) signifies the like offence with a widow
or virgin. In the time of Augustus a law was enacted (probably about
B.C. 17), entitled _Lex Julia de adulteriis coercendis_, which seems
to have contained special penal provisions against adultery; and
it is also not improbable that, by the old law or custom, if the
adulterer was caught in the fact, he was at the mercy of the injured
husband, and that the husband might punish with death his adulterous
wife. By the Julian law, a woman convicted of adultery was mulcted
in half of her dowry (_dos_) and the third part of her property
(_bona_), and banished (_relegata_) to some miserable island, such
as Seriphos, for instance. The adulterer was mulcted in half his
property, and banished in like manner. This law did not inflict the
punishment of death on either party; and in those instances under
the emperors in which death was inflicted, it must be considered as
an extraordinary punishment, and beyond the provisions of the Julian
law. The Julian law permitted the father (both adoptive and natural)
to kill the adulterer and adulteress in certain cases, as to which
there were several nice distinctions established by the law. If the
wife was divorced for adultery, the husband was entitled to retain
part of the dowry. By a constitution of the Emperor Constantine, the
offence in the adulterer was made capital.
ADVERSĀRĬA, a note-book, memorandum-book, posting-book, in which
the Romans entered memoranda of any importance, especially of money
received and expended, which were afterwards transcribed, usually
every month, into a kind of ledger. (_Tabulae justae, codex accepti
et expensi._)