acta
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In ancient Rome, the daily minutes of public business and a record of political and social events. Julius Caesar in 59 ordered that the Senate's daily doings (acta diurna, commentaria Senatus) be made public; Caesar Augustus later prohibited publication, though the Senate's acts continued to be recorded and could be read with special permission. There were also public registers (acta diurna urbis, daily minutes of the city) of the acts of the popular assemblies and the courts as well as births, deaths, marriages, and divorces. These constituted a daily gazette, a prototype of the modern newspaper.
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acta, under the Roman empire, an emperor's enactments which magistrates and succeeding emperors swore to observe, unless they had been explicitly rescinded immediately after an emperor's death: acta senatūs (‘enactments of the senate’), under the empire, the official record of proceedings in the senate; acta diurna (‘daily events’), a gazette of social and political news published daily from 59 BC and read both in Rome and in the provinces.
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acta (ăk'tə), official texts of ancient Rome, written or carved on stone or metal. Usually acta were texts made public, although publication was sometimes restricted. Acta were first posted or carved for general reading c.131 B.C. They were accounts of general interest and were later called Acta diurna, and they have been compared to modern newspapers. There were special acta of municipal, legal, or military content. The Acta senatus, according to a Roman administrative tradition, were for many years kept secret so that the public should have no knowledge of senatorial debate. In 59 B.C., Julius Caesar, as consul, ordered their publication along with the Acta diurna, but later the publication was censored. Acta was also the term used for the laws themselves, primarily those promulgated by the emperors.
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Britannica Concise Encyclopedia. © 1994-2012 Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. All rights reserved. Read more
Oxford Companion to Classical Literature
The Concise Oxford Companion to Classical Literature. Copyright © 1993, 2003 by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved.
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