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That the influence of the bishop in affairs of state at this period was only of an individual, extra-official character can be seen also from the fact that the king considered the bishops themselves to be under his judicial jurisdiction in all secular matters, just as the lesser clergy came under the jurisdiction of the judices: and further, that after the election to a church, the decision of the judex must confirm the choice of the community in order to render it valid.
When parties were at issue about facts, it was the custom for the praetor to fix the question of law upon which the action turned, and then to remit to a delegate, or judge, to inquire into the facts and pronounce judgment according to them. In the time of Augustus there were four thousand judices, who were merely private citizens, generally senators or men of consideration.
The bishop of Arezzo gained a favorable decision from a court constituted of some judices, missi of the emperor, and of the bishops of Florence, Volterra and Siena, Agiprandus, Petrus and Anastasius.
Rescriptum episcoporum Dardaniæ ad Gelasium Papam. Ep. iv. ad Faustum; Mansi, viii. 17. Ep. xiii. Valde mirati sumus; Mansi, viii. 49. Mansi, viii. 30-5. Ne arrogantiam judices divinæ rationis officium. Quem cunctis sacerdotibus et Divinitas summa voluit præeminere, et subsequens Ecclesiæ generalis jugiter pietas celebravit. Photius, 134; Hefele, C.G., ii. 597.
When the trial came on, Cicero, who was then consul and one of the advocates of Murena, on account of Cato's connection with the Stoics, ridiculed and mocked these philosophers and their so-called paradoxes, and thus made the judices laugh. On which it is said that Cato, with a smile, observed to those who were present, "My friends, what a ridiculous consul we have."
He then continued his reforms and improvements, as Napoleon did after his coronation as emperor. He gave the Roman franchise to various States and cities out of Italy, and colonized new cities. He excluded judices from all ranks but those of senators and knights, and enacted new laws for the security of persons and property.
But the abuse does not seem to have been satisfactorily corrected till the time when Charlemagne formally substituted for the body of the freemen, who in theory were supposed to attend the placita and assist in the judgments, a limited number of men who, as regularly constituted judges, either assisted the judices or made judgments of their own, as the case might be.
A prosecutor was said ferre judicem res, when he proposed to the accused person some one out of the judices selecti, before whom the case might be tried; if the accused person consented to the person named by prosecutor, then the judge was said convenisse, to have been agreed on. Sometimes the accused was allowed to select his own judge, judicem dicere.
They were in fact at this time the most unmilitary part of the population, and they inherited the title only because the property qualification for the equites equo privato, i.e. the cavalry who served with their horses, had been taken as the qualification also for equestrian judices, to whom Gaius Gracchus had given the decision of cases in the quaestio de repetundis.
However this may be, Clodius was acquitted, for the majority of the judices gave in their votes written confusedly, that they might run no risk from the populace by convicting Clodius nor lose the good opinion of the better sort by acquitting him.
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