Deditio
[1] The Augustan-era historian Livy narrates an early example of deditio from Rome's semilegendary Regal period, when Tarquinius Priscus defeated the Collatini.[2] Although Rome claimed rights to the lands and property of the defeated, restitution might be made to some individuals or to the conquered people as a whole.[6] The individual performing the deditio was required to demonstrate his self-humiliation by removing his shoes, donning a penitential robe, or copiously weeping.Following a brief symbolic term of imprisonment, the supplicant would then have his previous obligations and offices restored to him in a display of magnanimity by the king.Their involvement therefore served as an important constraint on the arbitrary exercise of royal power during the early and high Middle Ages.