CŪRĀTOR

Till a Roman youth attained the age of puberty, which was generally fixed at fourteen years of age, he was incapable of any legal act, and was under the authority of a tutor or guardian; but with the attainment of the age of puberty, he became capable of performing every legal act, and was freed from the control of his tutor . As, however, a person of that tender age was liable to be imposed upon, the lex Plaetoria enacted that every person between the time of puberty and twenty-five years of age should be under the protection of a curator . The date of this lex is not known, though it is certain that the law existed when Plautus wrote (about B.C. 200), who speaks of it as the lex quina vice maria . This law established a distinction of age, which was of great practical importance, by forming the citizens into two cla es, those above and those below twenty-five years of age ( minores viginti quinque ann is ). A person under the last-mentioned age was sometimes simply called minor . The object of the lex was to protect persons under twenty-five years of age against all fraud ( dol us ). A person who wasted his property ( prodigus ), and a person of unsound mind ( furiosus, demens ), were also placed under the care of a curator .