252 



CIVIC CROWN CIVIL LAW. 



large ami well market! ; tlie second including tlie 

 genet*, ui winch tliere is a simple depression, instead 

 of a pouch. Two species of tlie first, and eight of 

 the second, are at present known. Their individual 

 peculiarities may be seen in Desmarest's Mammalogy, 

 p. 205. The odoriferous substance which these ani- 

 nuils yield, called, from them, civet, when good, is 

 of a clear yellowish or brown colour, and of about 

 the consistence of butter : when undiluted, tlie smell 

 is powerful and very offensive, but, when largely di- 

 luted with oil or other materials, it becomes an 

 agreeable perfume. At a time when perfumes were 

 more fashionable tlian they are at present, civet was 

 very highly esteemed, being, by many, even prefer- 

 red to musk. Young civet-cats were purcliased by 

 tin- drug dealers of Holland, England, &c., as we 

 are informed by Lemery, and brought up tame for 

 the sake of the civet, " so that a cat which is large 

 and gentle may come to be valued at between four 

 and eight pounds sterling." M. Pomet, in his 

 history of drugs, relates that he was presented by 

 a friend with a civet-cat, obtained in China in 1683. 

 " Having kept this creature some days, I perceived 

 tliat tlie walls and bars that enclosed it were covered 

 with unctuous moisture, thick, and very brown, of a 

 very strong and disagreeable smell, so that, during all 

 the time I kept this animal,! took care to gather tlie ci- 

 vet out of the pouch every other day, not without some 

 trouble or hazard, because it put tlie creature to some 

 Iin or apprehension of it ; and having done so for 

 months, I had about the quantity of an ounce and a 

 half; but it is certain, that, if the necessary care had 

 been taken, and the beast could be hindered from 

 rubbing itself, I might have got a great deal more." 

 The medical virtues once attributed to the civet were 

 numerous and various ; but, in course of time, it has 

 been entirely laid aside, even as a perfume ; so that, 

 at tin's time, the words of the dramatist, " Give me 

 an ounce of civet, good apothecary, to sweeten my 

 imagination," might be frequently repeated, even in 

 our large cities, with slight probability of obtaining 

 the article. 



CIVIC CROWN ; among the Romans, the high- 

 est military reward, assigned to him who had pre- 

 served the life of a citizen. It bore the inscription 

 Ob civem servatum, and was made of oak leaves. 



Tie who was rescued offered it, at tlie command 

 of his leader, to his preserver, whom he was bound to 

 honou r afterwards as a father. Under the emperors, 

 it was bestowed only by them. Various marks of 

 honour were also connected with it. The person 

 who received the crown wore it in the theatre, and 

 sat next the senators. When he came in, all the as- 

 sembly rose up, as a mark of respect. The senate 

 granted to Augustus, as a particular mark of honour, 

 that a civic crown should be placed on the pedi- 

 ment of his house, between two wreaths of laurels, 

 as a sign that he was the constant preserver of his 

 fellow citizens and the conqueror of his enemies. 

 Similar honours were also granted to Claudius. 



CIVIL LAW. I. The Romans understood by 

 this term nearly the same sis, in modern times, is 

 implied by the phrase positive law, that is, the rules of 

 right established by any government. They contradis- 



tinguished it from natural law (Jus naturale), by 

 which they meant a certain natural order followed by 

 all living beings (animals not even excepted), also 

 from the general laws of mankind, t'stabli.-hed by 

 tlie agreement of all nations and governments (Jus 

 gentium). In this sense, therefore, it embraced the 

 whole system of Roman law, both the private law 

 (jusprivatum), which relates to the various legal rela- 

 tions of the difterent members of the state, tin- cituciis, 

 and the public law (Jus publicum) , that is, the rules re- 

 specting tlie limits, rights, obligations, &c., of tlie pub- 

 lic authorities. II. As, however, the laws of any 

 state, particularly such a one as Rome, can rest only in 

 part on positive and special decrees, and must a!\v a \-, 

 be developed, in a great measure, by the customs, 

 and religious and philosophical opinions of the na- 

 tion, and the decisions of the courts, further distinc- 

 tions soon grew up. The supreme administration of 

 justice in Rome was in tlie hands of the pretors ; and 

 these officers, on account of the paucity of positive 

 enactments, soon acquired the power of supplying 

 then- deficiencies. To quote the words of Gibbon 

 " The art of respecting the name and eluding the effi- 

 cacy of tlie laws was unproved by successive pre- 

 tors ; and where the end was salutary, the means 

 were frequently absurd. The secret or probable 

 wish of tlie dead was suffered to prevail over the or- 

 der of succession and the forms of testaments, and 

 tlie claimant who was excluded from tlie character of 

 heir, accepted, with equal pleasure, from an indul- 

 gent pretor, the possession of the goods of his late 

 kinsman or benefactor. In the redress of private 

 wrongs, compensations and fines were substituted for 

 the obsolete rigour of the twelve tables, time and space 

 were annihilated by fanciful suppositions, and the 

 plea of youth, or fraud, or violence, annulled the 

 obligation or excused the performance of an incon- 

 venient contract. A jurisdiction thus vague and ar- 

 bitrary was exposed to the most dangerous abuse. 

 But the errors or vices of each pretor expired with 

 his annual office ; and such maxims alone as had 

 been approved by reason and practice, were copied 

 by succeeding judges. " The pretors made an annual 

 declaration, at the commencement of their term of 

 office, of the principles according to which they in- 

 tended to administer justice (f dictum, pratoris). This 

 was publicly exposed on a table (album), and uni- 

 formity was maintained in the series of pretoriau 

 edicts by the legal spirit of the nation. Under the 

 emperor Adrian, a new publication of the pretoriau 

 edict, unalterable from that time '.(ediclum perpetuum) , 

 took place, respecting the real extent of which scho- 

 lars do not agree. The whole body of rules and re- 

 medies established by the pretors, whose jurisdiction 

 resembled, in some respects, that of the courts of 

 equity of England, was called jus honorarium, and 

 was opposed to the strict formal law (Jus civile). 

 (See the next paragraph of this article.) III. The 

 Roman law, in the shape which it assumed after tlie 

 whole was digested in the 6th century A. D., under 

 the emperor J ustinian, was fully and formally admit- 

 ted as binding in only a small part of Italy ; but both 

 here and in other ancient portions of the empire, it 

 retained great influence, even after the Teutonic 

 tribes had established new governments hi the terri- 

 torities which had been under the dominion of Rome. 

 In the south of France, the collection of imperial de- 

 crees and decisions which Theodosius II. (A. D. 43S) 

 had prepared, remained valid, also, under the Goths. 

 Savigny's History of the Roman Law in the Middle 

 Ages (Heidelberg, 1822, et seq., 4 vols.) exhibits 

 great research into the subject of the continuance 

 and the revival of this law. After tlie llth century, 

 Upper Italy, particularly the school of Bologna, lie- 

 came the point where the body of the Roman law, 



