La formula di Mucio Scevola, i nomi delle azioni e l'agere per concepta uerba

The formula Mucii Scaeuolae depicted in the fresco of ‘The Jurist’s Villa’ upon the Aniene river probably does not refer to a specific action of the formulary procedure (agere per formulas). The pratice of naming some actions after the nomen gentilicium of a praetor is in fact attested in our sources only after the so-called codification of the Edictum Perpetuum in the age of Hadrian. The discovery of the fresco leads us to reflect once again on the origins of the formulary procedure, since the Mucius Scaevola of the fresco inscription may well refer to the jurist Quintus Mucius Scaevola. This in turn might suggest both that he was actually owner of the villa and that it was he who introduced into Roman jurisprudence the prototype of the judgmental scheme in which the judge was offered two alternatives, whereby judgement in favour of the plaintiff or the defendant was made to depend on the judge’s assessment of the facts. On the evidence of the fresco, this formulation, which later served as a model for the formulae certae, may have been invented by Quintus Mucius Scaevola.