On the Dual Nature of Interdict Proceedings in Rome During the Era of the Republic and the Principate

In ancient Rome, there were at least two forms of interdict proceedings. The first form was associated with the magistrate imperium, which operated outside Rome, in particular in the provinces, and could do without transferring the case from the magistrate to the court. Extraordinary investigations in Rome itself belonged to the same form, when, due to the danger threatening the state from public violence, the Senate gave the magistrate dictatorial powers to issue interdicts and punish those who disobeyed them. In case of disobedience to the first interdict, the magistrate could resort to interdictum secundarium, which provided for doubling property liability in civil cases, and criminal liability in public cases, up to the death penalty or exile and confiscation of property through aquae et ignis interdictio.

The second form was related to the transfer of the case, which began with the praetorian interdict, from the magistrate to the ordinary court. There is no place for an extraordinary process here, and the praetorian interdict is only a special pre-trial means of bringing a claim.