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On this page: Incensus – Incitega

INCESTUM.

Rome, which was evidently occasioned liunmna fraude. Tlie offenders were discovered and pun­ished (animadversum est)9 but Livy unfortunately does not state (xxvi. 27) in what manner. The crime of incendium was the subject of various enactments in the last century of the republic. Sulla, in his Lex Cornelia de Sicariis, punished ma­licious (dolo malo) incendium, but only in the city, or within a thousand paces of it, with aquae et ignis interdictio, since it was frequently employed as a means for the perpetration of murder, which was especially the subject of this law. (Big. 48. tit. 8. s. 1.) Cn. Pompeius, in b.c. 52, made incendium a crime of Vis by hisZea? Pompeia de VI, in conse­quence of the burning of the Curia and the Porcia Basilica on the burial of Clodius ; and Julius Csesar also included it in his Lex Julia de Vi, which en­acted that any act of incendium committed by large numbers of men, even if the object of their assembling together was not incendium, should be treated as Vis, and punished with aquae et ignis interdictio. (Cic. Phil. i. 9 ; comp. Par ad. 4.) The more recent Lex Julia de Vi seems to have been less severe, but it is uncertain what punishment it ordained. (Paull. v. 26. § 3.) Besides the two criminal prosecutions given by the Lex Cornelia and Lex Julia, a person could also bring actions to recover compensation for the injury done to his property: 1. By the actio legis Aquilliae, in case of accidental incendium. (Dig. 9. tit. 2. s. 27 § 5.) 2. In the case of a person who had committed robbery or done injury during an incendium, there was a praetorian action de incendio, which compelled him to restore fourfold the amount. (Dig. 47. tit. 9. ss. 1,5.) In the imperial period various distinctions were made in the crime. First, a dis­tinction was made according to the greater or smaller danger of the incendium to the contiguous objects: thus incendium in the city was punished with less severity than incendium in the country. Secondly, a distinction was made according as the act had been performed dolo, culpa, or casu. If the incen­dium was not malicious, but still might have been avoided by ordinary care, a person had to make compensation ; but if the incendium was purely ac­cidental, no compensation was necessary. The cognitio was extraordinaria and belonged to the Praefectus urbi, who could inflict whatever pun­ishment he pleased, for it appears that there was no punishment fixed by laAV. We accordingly find mention of execution by the sword, burning alive, condemnation to the mines and to public works, deportatio, relegatio, flogging, &c., as punishments inflicted on account of incendium. (Dig. 48. tit. 19, s. 28. § 12; 9. tit. 2. s. 30. § 3 ; 47. tit. 9. § 1 ; Paull. v. 20. § 1. v. 3. § 6 ; Coll. Leg. tit. 12.) The preceding account is taken from Rein, Das Criminalreclit der Romer, pp. 765—774, where all the authorities are given.

INCENSUS. [caput ; census, p. 263, a.] INCESTUM or INCESTUS. Incestum is non castum, and signifies generally all immoral and irreligious acts. In a narrower sense it denotes .the unchastity of a Vestal, and sexual intercourse of persons within certain degrees of consanguinity. If a man married a woman whom it was for­bidden for him to marry by positive morality (moribus), he was said to commit incestum. (Dig. 23. tit. 2. s. 39.) Such a marriage was in fact no marriage, for the necessary connubium between the parties was wanting. Accordingly, incestum

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INCITEGA.

is the sexual connection of a male and a female, whether under the form of marriage or not, if such persons cannot marry by reason of consanguinity.

There was no connubium between persons re­lated by blood in the direct line, as parents and children. If such persons contracted a marriage it was Nefariae et Incestae nuptiae. There was no connubium between persons who stood in the rela­tion of parent and child by adoption, not even after the adopted child was emancipated. There were also restrictions as to connubium between collateral kinsfolk (ex transverse gradu cognation-is): therj was no connubium between brothers and sisters, either of the whole or of the half blocd ; nor between children of the blood and children by adoption, so long as the adoption continued, or so long as the children of the blood remained in the power of their father. There was connubium be­tween an uncle and his brother's daughter, after the emperor Claudius had set the example by marrying Agrippina ; but there was none between an uncle and a sister's daughter. There was no connubium between a man and his amita or mater-tera [CoGNATi] ; nor between a man and his socrus, nurus, privigna or noverca. In all such cases when there was no connubium, the children had a mother, but no legal father.

Incest between persons in the direct line was punishable in both parties ; in other cases only in the man. The punishment was Relegatio, as in the case of adultery. Concubinage between near kinsfolk was put on the same footing as marriage. (Dig. 23. tit. 2. s. 56.) In the case of adulterimu and stuprum between persons who had no connu­bium, there was a double offence: the man was punished with deportatio, and the woman was sub­ject to the penalties of the Lex Julia. (Dig. 48. tit. 18. s. 5.) Among slaves there was no inces­tum, but after they became free their marriages were regulated according to the analogy of the connubium among free persons. It was incestum to have knowledge of a vestal virgin, and both parties were punished with death.

That which was stuprum, was considered inces­ tum when the connection was between parties who had no connubium. Incestum, therefore, was stuprum, aggravated by the circumstance of real or legal consanguinity, and, in some cases, affinity. It was not the form of marriage between such per­ sons that constituted the incestum ; for the nuptiae were incestae, and therefore no marriage, and the incestuous act was the sexual connection of the parties. Sometimes incestum is said to be contra fas, that is, an act in violation of religion. The rules as to Incestum were founded partly on the Jus Gentium and partly on the Jus Civile ; but the distinction did not exist in the early periods, and the rules as to Incestum were only such as were recognized by the Jus Gentium. Though the rules as to Incestum were afterwards more exactly determined by the Jus Civile, there does not seem to have been any complete lex on the matter. The Lex Julia de adulteriis only treated Incestum incidentally, or so far as it was also adultery: but the jurists connected all the im­ perial legislation on this matter and their own inter­ pretation with the Lex Julia. (Rein, Das Crimi- nalrecht der Romer, p. 869, &c.) [G. L.]

INCITEGA, a corruption of the Greek a-yyoQ-fiKi) or eyyv6-f)icr), a term used to denote a piece of domestic furniture, variously formed ac-