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Actio
MATTHEW J. PERRY

An actio (action or legal action) was a form

of legal remedy granted to individuals under
Roman private law. It was a mechanism for
correcting various wrongs done to ones person, family, and goods, and as such was a
foundational procedural element of Roman
jurisprudence. The term actio may also
have implied an individuals right to exercise
this legal remedy, although the existence of a
concept of legal rights in ancient Rome has
been debated by modern scholars (Q. I. 3.6.77;
Schultz 1951: 246; Nicholas 1962: 1920).
In the Early Republic, Roman law was highly
ritualized and formalized, and as such recognized only a handful of rigidly defined actiones
(see LEGIS ACTIO). Around the second century
BCE, a more expansive and flexible formulary
system developed that allowed for the creation
of new types of legal actions to correct recognized offenses (see FORMULA). In order to advise
citizens of their available legal remedies, the
urban PRAETOR issued an edict each year to list
the specific actiones that he would allow (see
EDICT, PRAETORS). Edicts and thus the actions
available to litigants grew increasingly standardized as praetors borrowed wholesale from

their predecessors. To initiate an actio, a litigant

needed personally to summon the defendant to
appear together with him before the praetor,
who would then decide whether or not an
action was warranted (see IN IUS VOCATIO).
Roman law grouped actiones into two
basic categories: those against a person (in
personam), which involved obligations, and
those for property (in rem), which involved
issues of ownership and use (Gai. I. 4.14).
The fundamental distinction between the two
was a critical conceptual issue in Roman jurisprudence: whereas an actio in personam considered a relationship between two individuals,
an actio in rem considered the relationship
between an individual and an object.
SEE ALSO: Actor (accusator, petitor);
Cognitio; Iudicium; Litis contestatio.

REFERENCES AND SUGGESTED READINGS

Buckland, W. W. (1963) A textbook of Roman
law from Augustus to Justinian, 3rd ed.
Cambridge.
Jolowicz, H. F. and Nicholas, B. (1972) Historical
introduction to the study of Roman law, 3rd ed.
Cambridge.
Nicholas, B. (1962) An introduction to Roman
law. Oxford.
Schultz, F. (1951) Classical Roman law. Oxford.

The Encyclopedia of Ancient History, First Edition. Edited by Roger S. Bagnall, Kai Brodersen, Craige B. Champion, Andrew Erskine,
and Sabine R. Huebner, print pages 5657.
2013 Blackwell Publishing Ltd. Published 2013 by Blackwell Publishing Ltd.
DOI: 10.1002/9781444338386.wbeah13004