Ancient Rome In modern historiography, ancient Rome refers to Roman civilisation from the founding of the city of Rome in the 8th century BC to the collapse of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century AD. It encompasses the Roman Kingdom (753–509 B ...

, ''a cognitionibus'' was one of the four

office An office is a space where an Organization, organization's employees perform Business administration, administrative Work (human activity), work in order to support and realize objects and Goals, plans, action theory, goals of the organizati ...

s in the chancellor's Imperial Rome office that helped the

emperor An emperor (from la, imperator, via fro, empereor) is a monarch, and usually the sovereignty, sovereign ruler of an empire or another type of imperial realm. Empress, the female equivalent, may indicate an emperor's wife (empress consort), ...

in his judicial function. It was a formal office function, like the ''ad legationes''. With the restoration in

Hadrian Hadrian (; la, Caesar Trâiānus Hadriānus ; 24 January 76 – 10 July 138) was Roman emperor from 117 to 138. He was born in Italica (close to modern Santiponce in Spain), a Roman ''municipium'' founded by Italic settlers in Hispania B ...

's era, it is possible that the office ''a libellis'' dominated the other three: ''a cognitionibus'', ''a studiis'' and ''a censibus''. ''A studiis'' was a documentation office, and ''a cognitionibus'' was the office that studied the process of the emperor's

appeal In law, an appeal is the process in which cases are reviewed by a higher authority, where parties request a formal change to an official decision. Appeals function both as a process for error correction as well as a process of clarifying and ...

. A correspondence office (''

ab epistulis ''Ab epistulis'' was the chancellor's office in the Roman Empire with responsibility for the emperor's correspondence. The office sent ''mandata'' (instructions) to provincial governors and other officials. ''Ab epistulis'' wrote in Latin (''ab ep ...

'') and an office that controlled the

Roman Empire The Roman Empire ( la, Imperium Romanum ; grc-gre, Βασιλεία τῶν Ῥωμαίων, Basileía tôn Rhōmaíōn) was the post-Republican period of ancient Rome. As a polity, it included large territorial holdings around the Mediterr ...

finance Finance is the study and discipline of money, currency and capital assets. It is related to, but not synonymous with economics, the study of production, distribution, and consumption of money, assets, goods and services (the discipline of fina ...

s (''

a rationibus The ''a rationibus'' was the secretary of finance in the Roman Empire and in charge of the imperial treasury, the ''fiscus''. His responsibilities involved monitoring the state's revenues and expenditures and maintaining the accounts of the ''fiscus ...

'') existed. In the Third century the offices of ''a libellis'' and ''a censibus'' or ''a libellis'' and ''a cognitionibus'' were merged.

Marcius Agrippa Marcius Agrippa ( fl. late 2nd/early 3rd century) was originally a slave serving as a beautician. He later became a freedman in some unknown way and then (illegally) started to encroach upon the rank of Equestrian, serving as ''advocatus fisci'' ...

was ''a cognitionibus'' and ''ab epistulis'' of

Caracalla Marcus Aurelius Antoninus (born Lucius Septimius Bassianus, 4 April 188 – 8 April 217), better known by his nickname "Caracalla" () was Roman emperor from 198 to 217. He was a member of the Severan dynasty, the elder son of Emperor S ...

Popular culture

The ''a cognitionibus'' appears in works of

Cassius Dio Lucius Cassius Dio (), also known as Dio Cassius ( ), was a Roman historian and senator of maternal Greek origin. He published 80 volumes of the history on ancient Rome, beginning with the arrival of Aeneas in Italy. The volumes documented the ...

and

Philostratus Philostratus or Lucius Flavius Philostratus (; grc-gre, Φιλόστρατος ; c. 170 – 247/250 AD), called "the Athenian", was a Greek sophist of the Roman imperial period. His father was a minor sophist of the same name. He was born probab ...

performing a job that arranges the order of cases before the

and summoning litigants into the ''

auditorium An auditorium is a room built to enable an audience to hear and watch performances. For movie theatres, the number of auditoria (or auditoriums) is expressed as the number of screens. Auditoria can be found in entertainment venues, community ...

''.

References

Bibliography

* Ancient Roman government Government of the Roman Empire Ancient Roman occupations {{ancient-rome-stub