[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.
Their involvement therefore served as an important constraint on the arbitrary exercise of royal power during the early and high Middle Ages.
[10] When the king violated an agreement previously entered into, it was not unusual for the mediators to intervene on behalf of the wronged party.