Abstract
Gaius Ateius Capito epitomizes the typical Roman jurist. An important collaborator of Augustus, he used his antiquarian knowledge of the rites and customs of Rome to help build the Augustan principate, obtaining the consulship in 5 AD. When Tiberius, Augustus' successor, asked him about the use of a little-used term that the emperor had used in an edict, the jurist replied : " Master, this word is Latin, and in any case, if it is not, it will become so from now on ". Usage brings words into linguistic normality, just as custom can be transformed into a legal norm.
In the Saturnalia (belonging to the literary genre of the philosophical banquet, and written perhaps around 420 AD, i.e. almost four centuries after Capito's death), Macrobius preserved a passage - little studied, but rich in implications - by this jurist. A guest picks up his ring, which has just fallen from the little finger of his right hand and not from his left hand, contrary to custom ; a question is then asked : why wear the ring on the left hand and on the finger next to the smallest one, the ring finger ? After a medical explanation had been given, going back to the anatomical knowledge of the Egyptians, another guest quotes a passage from a work by Capito that provides a different explanation (Macr., 7.13.11). The Romans sealed documents with their ring, printing it on wax. But - is the question Capito was asking himself - could the image engraved on the ring be that of a god ? According to Capito, this is nefas, constituting a breach of good relations with the gods. And yet, the very many Roman signet rings that have come down to us very often depict divinities. An apparent contradiction ! Capito is no doubt expressing the point of view of a scholar ; there was no official ban. But why was he expressing an opinion contrary to such a widespread practice ? Two parallel passages may help to explain. Suetonius, in the Life of Tiberius (58), mentions the case of a person punished for wearing a ring (or using a coin) bearing the emperor's effigy in an unseemly place (latrine or whorehouse). Tacitus(Ann., 3, 70) mentions the lèse-majesté trial of a knight who had used silverware bearing the imperial image for table service : Capito, who took part in the Senate debate on this case, argued that the emperor's portrait could not be used to show off his luxury. However, in the passage cited by Macrobius, the same Capito showed that rings were also no longer used in Roman society for their sigillary function, but as marks of luxury. To demonstrate this, he recounted the position of the ring and the changes it had undergone over time. Originally, the virtuous Roman man used the ring only for signing, and everyone owned one and only one, a sign that the loyal man has only one word. But little by little, luxury prevailed, with the engraving of seals on precious stones : " From this, it happened that the right hand, which acts a lot, was freed from the custom of wearing rings, a custom which was transferred to the left hand, which remains more idle ". In the end, the ring finger is chosen, as it is protected - and with it, the chiselled gemstone - by the fingers that surround it, but in so doing, it is no longer fides, loyalty, that is protected, but rather the ring's economic value. It is therefore from the position of the ring and its transition frominstrumentum to ornamentum that Capito stages an allegory of the decadence of Roman morals. This is why, in his opinion, it was wrong to carve rings with images of the gods, just as it was outrageous to use the emperor's portrait on a vulgar everyday object. The use of the past by jurists is thus condensed into a ring.
