LIBELLI, the name given to the bills which were put up amongst the Romans, giving public notice of the time
when a show of gladiators would be exhibited, with the number of the combatants, and other circumstances. This was called munus pronuntiare or proponere. The libelli or bills were sometimes termed edicta. These public notices were given by the person who intended to oblige the people with a show, and were frequently attended with pictures representing the engagement of some celebrated gladiators. There was also the famosus libellus, or defamatory libel. Seneca calls them contumeliosi libelli, infamous rhymes, which, by a Roman ordinance, were punishable with death. Libellus in the civil law also signifies the declaration, or state of the prosecutor's charge against the defendant; and it has the same signification in the English spiritual courts.