PRAECŌNES, criers, were employed for various purposes: 1. In
sales by auction, they frequently advertised the time, place, and
conditions of sale: they seem also to have acted the part of the
modern auctioneer, so far as calling out the biddings and amusing
the company, though the property was knocked down by the _magister
auctionis_. [AUCTIO.] 2. In all public assemblies they ordered
silence. 3. In the comitia they called the centuries one by one to
give their votes, pronounced the vote of each century, and called
out the names of those who were elected. They also recited the laws
that were to be passed. 4. In trials, they summoned the accuser and
the accused, the plaintiff and defendant. 5. In the public games,
they invited the people to attend, and proclaimed the victors. 6.
In solemn funerals they also invited people to attend by a certain
form; hence these funerals were called _funera indictiva_. 7. When
things were lost, they cried them and searched for them. 8. In
the infliction of capital punishment, they sometimes conveyed the
commands of the magistrates to the lictors. Their office, called
_Praeconium_, appears to have been regarded as rather disreputable:
in the time of Cicero a law was passed preventing all persons who
had been praecones from becoming decuriones in the municipia. Under
the early emperors, however, it became very profitable, which was no
doubt partly owing to fees, to which they were entitled in the courts
of justice, and partly to the bribes which they received from the
suitors, &c.
PRAEDA signifies moveable things taken by an enemy in war. Such
things were either distributed by the Imperator among the soldiers or
sold by the quaestors, and the produce was brought into the Aerarium.
The difference between Praeda and Manubiae is this:--Praeda is the
things themselves that are taken in war, and Manubiae is the money
realized by their sale. It was the practice to set up a spear at
such sales, which was afterwards used at all sales of things by a
magistrates in the name of the people. [SECTIO.]