II* 



LAT1NTM JUS. JUS LATH, LATIXITAS. 



LAUGHTKR. 



110 



mnniMil by Cain* Oraoobtts, bat UM consul C. Fannius ordered them 

 in ill ! I ill ill IT The civil condition of the Latin*,orJu. UUnuni, 

 a* lh*fnr inferior to that of UM Roman*, but next to it in 

 r^-..*-. and a kind of intermediate (Up toward* obtaining 

 H. TWr h*.l.crro at Route. *ume advantage* over the Peregrin!, or 

 ab^ who w domiciled in that city. 



When the Human* began aending oat colonies to several town* of 

 Lauom, soeh a* Ardea. they probably placed the colonists on the same 

 *juiii- a* UM old '^'." inhabitant*, namely, under the Jus Latinum. 

 Aod afurward* they followed the same *ystem with regard to colonies 

 wbkh they MB* to other part* of Italy, and which were called Latin 

 colonies, though thi* BUM did not mean that they consutod of Latini, 

 but that the oolonwU, whether Boman* or Latins or from other parts 

 of Italy, wet* placed, with regard to Rome, on the same footing a* 

 UM inhabitant* of Latium. The two principal advantage* of their con- 

 dition were lat, that they enjoyed municipal independence, had their 

 ' air own local magistrates, and were not subject to 



r and 2nd, that thcae who filled important municipal 



i for one year in UM colony acquired the full right of the Roman 

 ci vita*, and. by transferring thru- domicile to Borne, might aspire to all 

 t|*a honour* and 'ifffirit* of the republic. 



At UM time of UM aecond Punic war there were thirty of these 

 ooknfe* in various parU of Italy. Twelve of them, after the battle of 

 , being weary of the protracted war, refused to give any further 

 M in men and money against Hannibal, saying that the 

 ought to make peace with .Carthage. These colonies were 

 Ardea, Mepeto, Sutrium, Alba, Carseoli, Cora, Suessa, Circeii, Setia, 

 Cafes, Narnia, Interamna. (' Livy,' xxvii. 9.) The other colonies 

 remained faithful, continued to furnish their contingents, and were 

 thus the means of saving Borne from destruction. These, it would 

 appear from a passage of Cicero (' Pro Cascina,' 35), received as a 

 raward the eommerchun with Borne, or the faculty of acquiring 

 Quiritarian ownership (' Gaius,' ii. 40), of taking by testamentary gift 

 from Roman citixens, and of making a will according to Boman 

 forms, AC. 



When by UM Julian law the people of Latium and other allies 

 received the full Boman franchise, the Latin colonies shared also the 

 boon. They obtained the civitu, all their citizens had the same civil 

 right* a* those of Rome, and if they came and settled at Rome, they 

 enjoyed all the political righto. At this period therefore the old 

 IjitiniUi, as a distinct civil condition of part of the inhabitants of Italy, 

 wa* at an end. 



But in the following year, under the consul Cn. Pompcius Strabo, 

 the towns of Transpadane Gaul, which were filled with a mixed 

 population of Italian* and Gaul*, had adopted the Latin language, 

 and remained faithful to Rome in the midst of the defection of the 

 Social war, were raised to the rank of Latin colonies, though no 

 fiflunirto were cent to them. By this new Latinitas, which was 

 called " Minus Latium," or the " lesser Latin franchise," compared 

 with the old Latinitas, the Transpadane towns continuing to govern 

 theuMelTe* according to their own laws, were allowed the commercium, 

 but not the connubium, with Borne ; and they obtained such shore of 

 political privilege that persons who filled magistracies and offices of 

 honour in such town* thereby acquired the full Roman franchise, and 

 they alone. Afterward* many other towns and provinces were raised 

 to the rank of Latin colonies in the same degree ; as, for example, the 

 town* of Sicily obtained it from Julius Caw. 



Thi* is the LatiniU*, or Jus Latinum, which exi*ted in Inter ages of 

 UM republic and under the empire, until Caracal h bestowed the 

 Roman citizenship upon the province*. The principal conditions of 

 thi* Latinita* will be found in the following passages of Ulpian. Ulp. 

 Frag. Tit. it, *. 10, Tit v. s. 4 & Tit xix. s. 4, in the last of which 

 there i* another kind of Latini mentioned ; namely, the Latini Juniani. 

 Thi* wa* a new kind of Latinitas, introduced by the Lex Junia 

 Korbana, paved under the consulship of M. Junius Silanus and C. 

 Norfaanu* Klaccua, in the tenth year of the reign of Tiberius, and the 

 twentieth of our era. By this law freedmen who were emancipated 

 without certain form* (' Gaius,' L, 17, 22, Ac.) and their offspring were 

 phnsrt not under the Jus ('mum Homanonim, but under the Jus 

 Latinum, and thi* even under peculiar restrictions. They hod the 

 eommercium. but not the connubium. (Savigny, ' Ueber die EnUte- 

 nong and FortbUdang der 1-ntinikit si* cine* eigenen Standes im 

 Bombohoi SUate,' in the ' KeiUchriftfUr Oeachichtlichc Rechtowuscn- 

 shaft,* 4th vol., 2nd No., Berlin, 1823.) Justinian ('Cod.,' b. vii., 

 ch. ) at last abolished thi* Junian or individual Latinitas. and as the 

 LatiniU. of the colonies had ceased long before, all distinction between 

 Latin and Roman wa* then at an end. 



The great importance which the Roman* attached to the grant, not 

 only of UM political franchise or suffrage, but also of the connubinm 

 and eonunataum, wa* an effect of their exclusive policy. When they 

 subdued a confederate people, such a* most of the Italian nations were, 

 they Ml to eaoh town iU law* and iU local magistrates, but forbade 

 UM general aanmblMi of the nation ; they restricted or entirely forbade 

 the ntoreoun* between on* town and another, so that the people of 

 arh could not marry out of their respective district. They pursued 

 afterward* the came policy in the countries which they conquered 

 beyond the limit* of Italy, a* in Macedonia, which they divided into 

 four pans, forbidding all communication between them. 



We must now speak of the Jus lUlicum. Slgonius understood it 

 to be a sort of middle condition, between that of the Latini and that 

 of the Peregrin!, or aliens, with regard to Rome. But Savigny con- 

 tends, and apparently with reason, that the Jus Italicum did not affect 

 single individuals, but whole towns, namely, j.rc .\inoial town* out of 

 Italy, to which it was granted, and that it consisted 1st, in the right 

 of having their own free institutions and administration ; 2nd, in 

 free from tax to Borne ; 3rd, in having the ownership of property in 

 the territory of those towns regulated according to the Quiriiurian or 

 Boman laws, and consequently subject to usucapion, ccasio juris, 

 mancipatio, and vindicatio. This last provision was an important 

 security to property, and it placed the towns Juris Italic! above all 

 otlu-r provincial towns, whether governed by a pnetor from Rome or 

 liberaj, which had not the same right. Towns having the Jus Italicum 

 ore mentioned by Pliny in Spain and lUyricuui; Constantinople i 

 mentioned in the Theodosian code as enjoying the Jus Ifciliri.' 

 in the Pandects ('l)e Censibus.'b. 1.. tit. 15) other towns are men 

 as possessed of the same right. (Savigny, ' Ueber das Jus Italicum,' 

 in the ' Zeitachrif t ' above mentioned. Bee also, on the whole of this 

 intricate matter concerning the Jus Latii and Jus Italicum, Sigouius, 

 l>e jure Antiquo Italia ; Cicero, Pro Balbo, with the Note* of Gravius 

 and ManutiiiH ; Niobuhr's ' History of Borne.') 



LATITUDE. [LONGITUDE AND LATITUDE.] 



LATITUDE, METHODS OF FINDING. [LONGITUDE AXD 

 LATITUDE, METHODS OP FINDING.] 



LATUS RECTUM. [ELLIPSE ; HYPERBOLA ; PARABOLA.] 



LAUDANUM. [OPIUM.] 



LAUGHING GAS. [NITROGEN ; nitrous oxide.] 



LAUGHTER, as physically defined, is an emotion entirely confined 

 to the human species. It is a peculiar agitation of the body, on 

 organical titillation as it were, which, rising suddenly and irresistibly , 

 affects at once the face and throat, the thorax and the abdomen. 

 Although this physical phenomenon is usually more or less loud, it in 

 sometimes almost imperceptible, and only traceable by a slight 

 muscular motion of the face .and mouth. It is usually a pleasant 

 sensation, but occasionally, as in cases of hysteria, it assumes a painful 

 character, and is no longer under the slightest control of the will. 

 While however the corporeal phenomenon is so simple, the nature of 

 the mental state, and of the object by which it is produced, is more 

 complicated and debateable. On this subject a groat variety of 

 opinions has prevailed. Among the ancients there is nx 

 unanimity than among the moderns. According to Aristotle, tho 

 ridiculous is some error in truth or propriety, but at the same time 

 neither painful nor pernicious (ri jdp yi\owr tarlv a/idf>TTiud n xai 

 cuVxoi aniSwov Kcd oft <f>9afTiKit>. ' De Poet.,' 6, 1). Nearly 

 coincident with the foregoing is the view of Cicero, who, while he 

 declares that the ridiculous is incapable of any rigorous definition, 

 admits that the chief, if not the sole object of laughter, is that which, 

 without impropriety, marks out and exposes an impropriety (" HUT. 

 enim ridentur vel sola vel maxime quae notant et deaignant turpitu- 

 dinem quandam non turpiter:" ' De Oratore,' 2, n. 235). Quintili.in 

 considers it to be absolutely indefinable (" Anceps ejus rei ratio est," 

 lib. vi., c. 3). At the same time, by adducing the opinion of Cicero, 

 that the improper and the deformed constitute the province of ridicule, 

 and affirming that ridicule is near allied to contempt ("a derisu ih>u 

 procul abest risus : " Ibid.), he approximates to the strong opinion of 

 Hobbes among moderns, according to whom, the source of laughter is 

 " a sudden glory arising from conception of some emiucncy in ourselves, 

 by comparison with the infirmity of others, or with our own formerly " 

 ('Human Nature," ch. ix., s. 13). With Hobbes's opinion, that of 

 Helvetius coincides, who makes pride the source of laughter. lieattio 

 and Priestley agree in making the ridiculous to arise out of a inisrelation 

 or incongruous union of objects ; while Lord Koines considers a 

 contrast to be the essence of the laughable. The latter vi. w is adopted 

 by Mendelssohn and J. Paul Richter. The former (' Dialogue ' iii., 

 ' Klein phil. und icsth. Schriften ') makes it to be grounded on a con- 

 trast between perfection and imperfection, whicli however must be 

 unimportant and but slightly interesting to us, and must amount to 

 no more than an extravagance or inconsistency. The latter (in his 

 ' Vorschule der yKsthetik,' p. 143) makes the ridiculous to be the 

 contrary of the sublime, and consequently the infinitely small. Closely 

 coincident with this view is that of Campbell (' Philosophy of 

 Rhetoric,' b. i., ch. ii.), who observes that " ridicule in futile objects 

 hath a similar effect to that produced by what is called the vehement 

 in solemn and important matters." Lastly, Kant (' Krit.ik der 

 UrtheiUkraft,' p. 225, 2nd ed.) makes the ridiculous to arise from the 

 sudden conversion into nothing of a long-raised and highly-wrought 

 expectation. 



According to Shaftesbury (' Characteristics,' ' Essay on Wit and 

 Humour') ridicule is the tost of truth, and he adduces in support of 

 his view the words of Gorgias of Leoutini, " Confute ridicule by serious- 

 ness and seriousness by ridicule " (rVf^r virovoV SiaMilptui yi\un, 

 rer 8J 7/Awro mrovii). Arist, ' Rhet,' lib. 3, ch. xviii.). In order to 

 adjunt the sentence to hi* own view, Shaftesbury adopts the Latin 

 version, " scria risu, risum serii* ditrulere ; " it is however clear from 

 the context where the passage i* quoted, that Gorgiax was there recom- 

 iii.-ndiiig an orator to endeavour to remove the impression which his 

 opponent may have made upon hi* auditors by employing a directly 



