Gaius Ateius Capito (jurist)

Gaius Ateius Capito († 22 AD) was a Roman jurist of the Augustan and tiberianischen time.

Capito received his professional training as a student of Ofilius. In addition to his legal work, he was politically active as a senator and reached the peak of his career with the Suffektkonsulat in 5 AD Since 13 AD he was and as the second curator Marcus Valerius Messala Corvinus aquarum after the backup of the Roman water supply the care of the natural and artificial watercourses in the urban area of Rome responsible. In this capacity, he worked 15 AD along with Lucius Arruntius a plan for the relocation of the Tiber run from in order to effectively protect the city from flooding, but the proposed action after major resistance from the population were rejected by the Senate. In the year 23 he was replaced in his capacity as curator of aquarum Tarius Rufus. Unlike his contemporaries and colleagues Antistius Labeo Ateius Capito was a keen proponent of the Augustan principate.

Ateius Capito was regarded as an outstanding legal scholar, was the most reputed in the field of Pontifical Right and sacral great competence. During his ministry he gathered a large group of students around him, later emerged, named after his disciple and successor Sabinus law school of Sabinianer from. Capito's writings are almost completely lost. Only a few working titles and fragments from indirect quotations in later authors are well known:

• De jure pontificio ( " About the Pontifikalrecht " ), at least 6 books on the law associated with the Office of the pontiffs,
• De iure, sacrificiorum ( " About the Victims' Rights " and " About the sacred law " )
• Coniectanea ( "Miscellaneous" ) in at least nine books, of which apparently each had his own subtitles,
• De officio Senatorial ( " About the Senator Office"),
• A work on Auguralrecht (title unknown )
• Epistulae ( "Letters " ), presumably to legal issues.

Ateius seems to have written about the Roman water supply, because Frontinus, one of his successors wrote: " How do I read in Ateius Capito, it was even later than the reign of Augustus, the water supply was transferred to trustees, in this control" [ that irrigation of Circus Maximus with the permission of the aediles or censors could take place. ]. Despite his reputation as a legal scholar who works Capito, which were read frequently still in the 6th century were rarely cited by later jurists and rarely mentioned in the Digest. However, he was often used by antiquarian writers such as Aulus Gellius or interested lexicographers as Verrius Flaccus, perhaps indicating that his writings were rather popular scientific nature.