ALBUM
ALBUM1. a notice board or tablet on which the annual edict of the praetor was inscribed. It contained the formulae and other legal remedies which the Praetor was prepared to grant [EDICTUM]. The album was put up in a public place in Rome, so that all persons might have notice of its contents. Its actual appearance is a subject of doubt. Some think that it was a piece of white painted wood, and that the letters on it were black, except the headings (rubricae), which were red. According to others, the letters were white, inscribed on a dark ground. Any one who took away, defaced, or destroyed the album was liable to an actio albi corrupti and to a heavy penalty (Paulus, 1, 13, 3; id. 7, 9; Dig. 2, tit. 1, s. 7, 9).
Probably the word album was used for any tablet containing a public announcement. Thus Cicero informs us that the annales maximi were written on the album by the pontifex maximus (de Orat. 2.12, 52).
2. But, however this may be, it was in course of time used to signify a list of any public body; thus we find the expression album senatorium used by Tacitus (Tac. Ann. 4.42) to express the list of senators, and corresponding to the word leucoma, used by Dio Cassius (4.3). The phrase album decurionum signifies the list of decuriones whose names were entered on the album of a municipium, in the order prescribed by the lex municipalis (Dig. 50, tit. 3). Album judicum is the list or panel of judices drawn up by the magistrates, from which he was bound to make his selection (Suet. Cl. 16). [JUDEX]