«‘Defensores quoque, quos Graeci syndicos appellant’». Il «syndicus» nell’impero romano tardoantico

While in the first three centuries of the empire, the syndici functioned as permanent process representatives of the civitates, from two texts by Arcadius Charisius (D. 50.4.18.13) and Hermogenianus (D. 50.4.1.2), on the contrary, it was between the end of the III century and the first half of the fourth century A.D., the syndici were assigned exclusively administrative duties in the context of the defensio of the civitates, which, although not at all explained by the two jurists, are known to us through some Egyptian papyri (P. Oxy. 2407 and P. Strassb. 296). The syndicus would then have been a local civil servant performing administrative functions in the interest of the city, in which the defensor civitatis of later times cannot be identified,instead having to think of a preexisting body in charge of functions similar to those that came then recognized precisely to the defensor civitatis by the first imperial legislation of the East. Therefore, the role played by syndici in the field of Roman public law was anything but secondary and, above all, the functions practiced by them were the most varied and heterogeneous.And, indeed, it is still the Egyptian practice to make known that, in addition to syndici carrying out only administrative activities, there were other syndici having only judicial powers (P. Col. VII.175). This does not mean, however, that their original task, carried out extensively in the classicalage, of procedural representatives of the guilds and of the civitates had disappeared, since in the opposite sense they unequivocally lay down CTh.16.2.42.2 (= C. 1.3.17.1), C. 12.35.18.2-2a and Nov. 80.2.