Definition
In Roman civil law, *interrogare* denotes the formal act of a senatorial magistrate — typically a consul — in proposing or moving a law before the Roman people for their adoption. The term describes the procedural step by which a magistrate initiated the legislative process: presenting the proposed measure and requesting that the assembled people enact it.
The classic formulation preserved in the Institutes of Justinian captures the concept precisely: *lex est quod populus Romanus, senatorio magistratu interrogante, (veluti consule,) constituebat* — a lex, properly so called, is that which the Roman people enacted upon the proposition or motion of a senatorial magistrate, such as a consul. The word *interrogare* in this context carries its legislative sense: to put the question to the people, to formally move that a measure be passed.
Why It Matters in Research
*Interrogare* is a narrow term of Roman constitutional procedure and surfaces primarily in contexts where researchers are working through the formal sources of Roman law — the Institutes, the Digest, or secondary literature engaging directly with those texts. Researchers encountering this word in translated or annotated legal materials should be alert to two things.
First, the term marks a specific stage in the Roman legislative sequence. The magistrate's *interrogatio* — the act of proposing or putting the question — was constitutionally prerequisite to a valid *lex*. Sources that describe Roman legislative authority often hinge on whether this procedural element was satisfied, and *interrogare* signals that a formal, magistrate-initiated proposal is under discussion, not an informal decree or administrative measure.
Second, Burrill notes that *rogare* was more commonly used for the same act. Researchers working in Latin legal texts may find *rogare* and its compounds (*rogatio*, *rogatus*) far more frequently than *interrogare* for the concept of legislative proposal. Treating these as functional equivalents in context is generally correct, but the distinction is worth preserving for precise work: *interrogare* emphasizes the interrogative, propositional character of the act — putting the question formally — while *rogare* carries the broader sense of requesting or moving.
For Law Mind corpus researchers, this term is unlikely to appear outside Roman law materials and their direct commentaries. It will not appear in common law sources, equity materials, or modern statutory contexts. When it does appear, it is almost always embedded in a Latin quotation or definition that itself requires unpacking.
Historical Dictionary Support
Burrill's is the primary dictionary source here, and its entry is essentially a gloss on the Institutes passage rather than an independent doctrinal treatment. Burrill faithfully reproduces the Justinianic definition and flags the relationship to *rogare* — a useful cross-reference that other historical dictionaries of English legal terminology would have little occasion to develop, given the term's purely Roman law provenance.
The entry is intentionally brief. *Interrogare* did not generate an independent body of common law commentary and would have required no extended treatment in a practitioner-oriented dictionary. Researchers should not expect to find meaningful development of this term beyond the Roman institutional sources themselves.
Jurisdictional Note
*Interrogare* in its legal sense belongs exclusively to Roman civil law. It has no operative meaning in common law jurisdictions, civilian jurisdictions as a term of positive law, or modern statutory systems. Its relevance to contemporary legal research is purely historical and comparative.