LEX RUBRIA. The province of Gallia Cisalpina ceased to be a Provincia, and became a part of Italia about the year B.C. 43. When this change took place, it was necessary to provide for the administration of justice, as the usual modes of provincial administration would cease with the determination of the provincial form of government. This was effected by a Lex, the name of which is unknown, but a large part of it, on a bronze tablet, is preserved in the Museum at Parma. This Lex arranged the judiciary establishment of the former provincia, and appointed II.viri and IV.viri juri dicundo: a Praefectus Mutinensis is also mentioned in the lex. In two passages of this Lex (c. xx l.29, 38) a Lex Rubria is mentioned, which, according to some, is an earlier lex by which Mutina was made a Praefectura; and according to others, the Lex Rubria is this very Lex de Gallia Cisalpina. This subject is discussed by Savigny (Zeitschrift, ix) and by Puchta (Zeitschrift, x. Ueber den Inhalt der Lex Rubria de Gallia Cisalpina).

This Lex has been published several times; the latest edition is "Tavola legislativa della Gallia Cisalpina ritrovata in Veleia et restituita alla sua vera lezione da D. Pietro de Lama, Parma 1820." We only possess the end of the nineteenth chapter of this Lex, which treats of the Novi Operis Nuntiatio; the twentieth chapter on the Damnum Infectum is complete: the twenty-first treats of Pecunia Certa Credita, but only of Execution; the twenty-second treats in like manner of similar actions; there is only the beginning of the twenty-third, which treats of the division of an hereditas (qvei de familia eerceiscunda deividunda ivdicivm sibei darei reddeive, &c. postulaverint, &c.). The matter of this lex therefore, so far as we know it, purely concerns procedure, as Puchta remarks.

William Smith, A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities (London: John Murray, 1875). p 697-698.