Execution of the highest power in military sphere by the dictators of Early

The Roman dictators regularily (invested with power by the Roman state in the 5th – 3rd bce с. in the situations of serious military treats to the Republic) had to accomplish three legally regulated public acts. They closed the courts, declare, if necessary, a levy in mass (if the warriors already called up for military service by ordinary magistrates were not numerous enough for starting a campaign), and personally supervised recruitment and training of the troops. Their orders were published in the form of an edictum which, most probably, contained all these regulations. Regardless of the purpose of its declaration, the dictatorship transferred the civil life of the city in the state of militiae. The newly formed army swore fidelity (called sacramentum) to the commander and – from the time of the Second Punic war – made a formal declaration of loyalty, ius iurandum. Contrary to a widespread scholarly opinion the author argues that it is the applicable legal rules, rather then the sphere of their applicability that distinguishes the imperium of an ordinary magistrate from this of an extraordinary one. Therefore, talking (not quite correctly) about “military imperium” of an extraordinary magistrate, the historians of Roman law are in reality dealing with an application of his imperium in military sphere.