Roman Law

This is review of the speech delivered by Professor Antonio Fernández de Buján on the occasion of his joining the Spanish Royal Academy of Jurisprudence and Legislation. The speech was given on the 20th of January, 2014, and was replied by Luis Díez-Picazo y Ponce de León, President of the Academy. In his speech, professor Fernandez de Buján made a brilliant exposition of arbitration as an alternative way of solving legal controversies since its very origins in Greece and Rome, and held the need for modern jurists to know this historic origin in order to thoroughly understand the present of arbitration.

Greek gynecological and pediatric standards created ideal types. One was
the woman fit to breastfeed, another the newborn fit to be breastfed. This
study examines the consequences of these standards on human lives. Mothers
and newborns who failed to measure up to the ideal were rejected, giving
added impetus to wet nursing, infant exposure and infanticide. These were
aspects of Mediterranean medicine, culture and religion long before Soranos
of Ephesos wrote his gynecological treatise. However, his instructions for
midwives made these ideals and standards explicit and authoritative.
Carried through by midwives, they altered the lives of women and sometimes
ended the lives of newborns. Together these standards contributed to a
recursive dynamic of the displacement of infants from birth mothers, infant
abandonment, and wet nursing that was favorable to class affirmation and to
the maintenance of the slave system of early imperial Rome.

This was very hard work, cos I studied very carefully military- and social structures of Rome. And of course, as usual, laws from codex Theodosianus. I was amazed at how different my view begins to be compared to common views of this history. The catholic church history and barbarian migration have a surprising new and massive part of Roman decline and fall. And I knew that is not what Finnish authors want to here.

RESUMEN: Este estudio se centra en la figura de Acilia Plecusa, una esclava que fue manumitida y contrajo un matrimonio legítimo con su propietario, Manius Acilius Fronto. Ellos eran originarios de la ciudad de Singilia Barba (Baetica) y formaron parte de una importante familia hispana del siglo II d. C. Los testimonios epigráficos nos muestran el destacado ascenso social de esta liberta que se encargó de costear inscripciones para homenajear tanto a sus familiares como a sus amigos más cercanos e influyentes.

ABSTRACT: This paper focuses on the figura of a freedwoman, Acilia Plecusa. She was a slave, but she was manumitted and got married to her owner, Manius Acilius Fronto. They were from Singilia Barba (Baetica) and belonged to an important family of the Second Century A. D. Inscriptions show us the outstanding social climbing of this freed woman, who took charge of financing the registrations to honour, not only her relatives, but also her closest and most influential friends.

It is a common misconception that fides and bona fides are ethical principles with changeable content, shaped by the development of social and moral values. They belong instead, since time immemorial, to the tradition of the ius civile, and are deeply rooted in Roman social structure (and its needs) as interpreted by the priests and by the jurists. The standard of fides and bona fides is always objective: in the archaic period, the real status of the parties (fides as the 'credit' of the individual within the group); afterwards, an abstact stardard identified with the bonus vir. The two concepts developed therefore from early on an (outwardly) dualistic value: on the one side, the respect of the parties' agreement; on the other side, the respect of all the terms implied in the nature of the relationship.

A proposito del mito di Leda, si introduce la discussione sulla violenza sessuale, spesso velata dietro un racconto di seduzione. Si focalizzano, nella parte centrale, i modelli comportamentali nella cultura medico-giuridica di lingua tedesca di fine Ottocento – inizio Novecento. Quando la psichiatria, la psicoanalisi e la sessuologia incontrano il diritto penale, la criminologia e la medicina forense, la natura umana è chiamata dinanzi al tribunale. Essa è femminile. Sulla questione della colpevolezza e sull’interrogatorio di reo e vittima in casi di stupro secondo Richard von Krafft-Ebing, Hans Gross, Erich Wulffen, all’ombra di Cesare Lombroso e Gino Ferrero.

This paper is a brief introduction into the Graeco‐Roman Marriage Contract material, and translation of P.OXY. X.1273. The text itself is interesting because it is dated later than the other marriage documents at Oxyrrhynchus. It belongs to the middle of the third century, when all free inhabitants of the Roman Empire gained status civitatis. This fact implies that the marriage contract should be conducted according to
Roman law. However, except for the nomina gentilicia and the stipulatory
formula, the contract is in essence of Greek type, not very different from
the ones that belong to the previous epoch. 

La «diligentia quam suis» del depositario dal diritto romano alle codificazioni nazionali Casi e questioni di diritto civile nella prospettiva storico-comparatistica (*) Introduzione-1. La diligentia quam suis del depositario nella compilazione giustinianea e nei Basilici-2. La 'lex quod Nerva ' prima della rinascita bolognese-3. D. 16.3.32 nella Glossa-4. La 'lex quod Nerva ' e la metodologia del commento-5. La culpa 'in concreto ' nei giuristi culti-6. La 'diligentia in concreto ' dal giusnaturalismo alle prime codificazioni-7. La 'neglegentia rebus suis consueta ' da Hasse al «BGB.»-8. D. 16.3.32 e la romanistica del XX secolo-9. Per una rilettura conclusiva della 'lex quod Nerva ' alla luce degli altri testi sulla diligentia quam suis

The book strives to provide a historical, comparative, and multidisciplinary introduction to the study of private law. Against the backdrop of the predominant position enjoyed by legal positivism, private law is thus understood as a complex social phenomenon, which intercats with human culture as a whole. The national jurisdictions belonging to the Western legal tradition are mainly depicted, as well as the supranational trends that point towards a global law. Particularly, the rise of a European law is accounted for not only within the framework of the Union's legislature, but also through the development of a rediscovered ius commune that emerges from comparative studies conducted by scholars and from the creative attitude of the courts. A special attention is paid to the sources of uniform law and to the development of soft law as a means of integration of legal systems. Traditional doctrines of juridical facts and duties are finally reinterpreted as devices designed to construct a jurisprudence that extends beyond national borders.

I membri del collegio di Nemesiaci oggetti di richiamo imperiale in un
provvedimento del 412 nel Codice Teodosiano sono figure di controversa interpretazione nella storia degli studi. Per comprendere le attività da essi svolte e come queste potessero configurarsi come un servizio pubblico, si analizzano gli aspetti del culto di Nemesi in età imperiale e in particolar modo il collegamento della dea con gli spettacoli anfiteatrali. Si esaminano poi le poche testimonianze epigrafiche e letterarie relative ai Nemesiaci e il loro frequente collegamento con Diana e la caccia. Infine, si propone di leggere il provvedimento sui Nemesiaci nel quadro della politica imperiale di controllo dei giochi pubblici tra IV e V secolo d.C.

My aim in this essay is to elucidate the meaning of the phrase collegia sodalicia, which occurs only in Digests 47.22.1 pr. (= Marcian F 73a Lenel), the introductory section of the Digests’ title De collegiis et corporibus (47.22).

In the first part of this essay, I outline some salient features of Marcian F 73a and briefly contextualize Marcian’s Institutes, the work of late Severan date from which Justinian’s compilers excerpted Digests 47.22.1 pr.-1.2.

In the second part, I demonstrate that the purported “sodalician associations” of Digests 47.22.1 pr. never existed. That phrase originated from a textual misunderstanding, which one can trace already in the Digests, if not before. I propose that Marcian wrote collegia sodaliciaue, “collegia or sodalicia”. I then segue to some of the implications my reinterpretation of Marcian F 73a holds for the study of associations in the Roman world.

The discussion on the spread of convivial luxury involving key figures of late Republican Rome reported in a passage of the 3rd book of the Saturnalia gives the opportunity to notice that around the end of the 4th century CE and the beginning of the 5th, Roman past history could be evaluated not merely through an idealized view, but also in order to censure some specific customs of the Republican period and to compare them with contemporary ones. In this light, in addition to stating the use of records from the pontifical archives as well as offering useful data from an historic-economic viewpoint, the exchange of opinions attributed to the two Albini brothers by Macrobius in this section of his work, allows us to suppose that through his antiquarian approach the author also meant to defend aristocratic ethics and probably reject the criticism about sumptuous trends which characterized banquets of the pagan élites in Late Antiquity.

Focusing on a digression included in Dionysius of Halicarnassus’ Roman Antiquities concerning the practice of manumission in Rome during the reign of the king Servius Tullius, this contribution aims to clarify the meaning of the historian’s disapproval of the Roman elite’s tendency to free slaves in their will as an expression of social ostentation, which was increasing in the first decades of the Augustan Principate, and also that of his proposal to scrutinize ex-slaves with the same censorial review used for senators and equestrians. In this light, beyond any interpretation as a rhetorical exercise on the decline of moral habits, the passage can be read as it relates to the debate that flourished until limits governing testamentary manumission were introduced by the Lex Fufia (2 BCE). In particular, considering the Roman Antiquities’ time of composition (ca 7 BCE), we may suppose that Dionysius was offering advice on the subject to specific figures such as his protector, the jurist Aelius Tubero , as well as Octavian Augustus

The paper examines the upsurge of piracy in the last century of the Roman Republic, to underline its impact on politics. Analysing the testimonials about the period after 105 BC, we can appreciate that as well as interfering in the wars against Mithridates, the fight against the pirates who were also infesting the western Mediterranean, gained a meaningful role in the political agenda. Some prominent figures on the public scene engaged by the institutions to solve the problem, exploited it to gain extraordinary powers that would take on a different meaning depending on the circumstances and their personalities, as shown by Pompey’s command of 67 BC. He took advantage of his skill to dissimulate his ambitions and the auctoritas he enjoyed, to obtain a position that, despite modern historiography’s difficulty with establishing its juridical limits, was the first step in his quest to rise to absolute power. This continued not only the following year with the new command that the Lex Manilia granted him, but also in the next decade when Pompey consolidated his position, taking advantage of the financial difficulties linked to the shortage of food supplies, not unlike those caused previously by the pirates’ incursions. All of this is witnessed on the one hand by Cicero, whose opinion of this figure became gradually more negative in the period from 66-49 BC, on the other by Imperial Age historiography. Centuries afterwards the latter was able to perceive and underline more and more explicitly the subversive novelty of the extraordinary command given to Pompey to eradicate piracy, bringing out its major role in the process leading to the decline of the Republican institutions and the creation of the Principality.

The references to the cult of Vesta included in numerous excerpts of Seneca the Elder’s collection of Controversiae offer a proof of the technical competence of declaimers in recalling the conditions prescribed by pontifical law for being admitted and kept in this priesthood, of which we are informed by the antiquarian tradition. Furthermore, these passages, which also show the importance recognized from an ethical viewpoint to values such as castitas and pudicitia in the time of Augustus and Tiberius, can be interpreted in light of some special episodes and dispositions stated by the historiographical tradition which reveal their interest in promoting and consolidating the cult of the Goddess Vesta protector of Rome’s Empire. Beyond the scholastic practice, the same interest is equally shared in the literary sphere by Seneca the Elder, as we can understand from the quotations within his work of excerpts from Controversiae dealing with Vestals

Collection of contributions on the phenomenon of Piracy in the ancient Mediterranean World, with special reference to its development in the Roman Period as well as to some aspects of its evolution from the Middle Ages to the Present, in order to ascertain its impact on the political agendas and the legal systems of different periods.

A detailed analysis of CIL XIV 2112 = ILS 7212, an inscription detailing the status and life of an association (collegium) of worshipers of Diana and Antinous in Lanuvium. A new edition of the text with English translation is also provided.

For the edition of the text, enter "Bendlin" in the publication field in http://oracle-vm.ku-eichstaett.de:8888/epigr/epigraphik_en.""

The transfer of ownership by an authorized non-owner is a common situation in everyday commercial practice. However, the dogmatic framework surrounding it has often led to controversy when studying both Roman and modern private law. Key to this controversy is the introduction by German scholars, in the course of the 19th century, of the notion of ‘direct representation’ in order to approach the transfer of ownership by a non-owner. Regarding the study of Roman law, this involved assuming the existence of a primitive prohibition to alienate through a non-owner, since ‘direct representation’ was seen as a later innovation. This starting point had a decisive effect for the study of the transfer of ownership by a non-owner in Roman law, particularly concerning the significance of the voluntas domini, the way in which legal guardians alienate, the scope of praetorian innovations, the possibility to transfer ownership through formal acts and the role of the nemo plus rule. Regarding modern private law, this starting point has brought along a radical distinction based on whether the alienation takes place in the context of direct representation or not.

This book attempts to offer a fresh view through a source-oriented approach in order to provide an outlook of the evolution of the transfer of ownership by a non-owner in Roman law, as well as the dogmatic and systematic standpoints among the jurists of the ius commune. Special attention is dedicated to the innovations of German scholarship, due to their significance for the study both of Roman law and for the evolution of modern private law.

The chapter offers an historical overview of Roman law as an object of legal historical research.

The forms of contemporary research on Roman law are more diverse than they have ever been.  This is true regarding its varied national traditions, in each of which distinct historical and linguistic conditions have obtained.  It is likewise true regarding the disciplinary location of research, and also at the level of method.  In long historical perspective, this situation could not easily have been foreseen.  From late medieval to early modern Europe, the prestige of Roman law had allowed it to serve as an important source of doctrine in analogical argument.  Although much anachronism followed in consequence, this also meant that readers of Roman law brought a remarkable range of concerns to their practice.  By the late 19th century, however, the historical study of Roman law had been reduced nearly everywhere to the narrowest form of doctrinal study.  In many places, this resulted from foundations laid for the study of Roman legal science in Germany, a development whose politics resemble those obtaining elsewhere when positive law is advanced as the truest form of law.  In the Anglophone world, significant pressure in this direction arose from a tradition of comparative study between the common law and civil law, which often demanded that the civil law be understood ex negativo in light of the common law's peculiar self-regard.  And everywhere there was the fateful decision to locate the academic study of Roman law in law schools.  Law school is where Roman law went to die.
The recent efflorescence of Roman law owes its origins to a number of related factors.  Many of these are shared with legal history writ large:  the remarkable influence of feminism in one generation, or new institutional economics, have impelled research in Roman law, too.  Some developments were accidental:  the interest of historical sociologists like Fustel de Coulanges and Henry Sumner Maine generated conversations with visible echoes today.  Similarly, the fact that Roman legal texts are among our oldest evidences of Latin made legal language a special focus of historical linguistics, and this in turn produced a school of legal scholarship that has employed linguistic tools to seek the ur-forms of Roman legal concepts.  Some developments were endogenous to the study of antiquity:  the on-going discovery of documentary texts from the ancient world yields every year new legal texts, with the result that varied evidence for law in action—including, significantly, law in action in colonial contexts—exists at the forefront of historical research.  Finally, unsurprisingly, the major development has been a surge of interest in law among scholars located in Classics and History departments, participating in the currents in law & society and law & literature scholarship that have swept the academy over the last two generations.
History is not destiny, of course.  Significant areas of research are only now opening to view (or becoming active once again, with new and interesting tools).  Because the remains of Roman law transmitted by textual traditions were overwhelmingly concerned with private law, public law has rarely received sophisticated attention.  The publication of new evidence over the last century should make public law an area of vital growth in the future.  The comparative study of Roman law, not least with rabbinic law, has long had a few sophisticated practitioners.  The potential of the field is enormous, and hopefully the rise of interdisciplinary degree programs will foster growth in this area.  Finally, Roman legal scholarship from antiquity to the twentieth century should itself be subjected to critical analysis, a process that has begun and will hopefully accelerate.

Borkowski's Textbook on Roman Law has been written with undergraduate students firmly in mind. The book provides a clear and highly readable account of Roman private law and civil procedure, with coverage of all key topics, including the Roman legal system, and the law of persons, property, and obligations. Aiming to provide a rounded picture of the subject, the author sets the law in its social and historical context, and demonstrates the impact of Roman law on our modern legal systems. A major feature of the book is the inclusion throughout of extracts in translation from the most important sources of Roman law: the Digest and the Institutes of Justinian. Annotated further reading sections at the end of each chapter act as a guide to further enquiry. Online Resource Centre The book is accompanied by an extensive Online Resource Centre, containing the following resources: -Self-test multiple choice questions -Interactive timeline -Biographies of key figures -Glossary of Latin terms -Annotated web links -Original Latin versions of the extracts from the Digest and the Institutes -Examples of textual analysis of Roman law texts -Guide to the literature and sources of Roman law

La querela inofficiosi testamenti no conocía del litisconsorcio. Cuando había más de un coheredero forzoso, cada uno de ellos interponía su acción independientemente de los otros, con el objetivo de conseguir la cuota hereditaria que le correspondía en virtud de la sucesión intestada. Normalmente cada querelante ejercía su derecho de acción, por la propia cuota hereditaria. Nos preguntamos aquí si el querellante que accionaba podía acrecer su cuota si era así notorio el repudio de la querela por parte de uno o más coherederos. Los pasajes del Digesto parecen dar respuestas contradictorias y la doctrina moderna sospecha que existía una controversia en el derecho (ius controversum). Sobre la base de dos escolios de los Basílicos se intenta demostrar que las divergentes conclusiones de los juristas estaban referidas a distintos casos. La exégesis de los textos sugiere finalmente algunas reflexiones sobre la acción de los compiladores de Justiniano.

Poetry was a “frequent guest” in Roman jurists' writings. Sometimes they were using inspirations of ancient poets to illustrate some legal problems. In one of these examples there is a quotation from “Iliad” concerning Patroklos, who had committed a crime in the heat of passion and was exiled. The question arises about the opinion of jurists in Rome in that matter. In their commentaries there is just a few casuistic examples of these crimes. On the other hand, there are no deeper legal reflections or reasonings of presented solutions. On this basis, however, one can conclude that criminal committing such an act could be mitigated or exculpated accordingly to circumstances. The main factor was a character and intensity of the affect, but also durability of his intention. Mentioned absence of theoretical argumentation can be completed with some conclusions from rhetorical writings. Jurists in the process of their education were acquainted with this part of philosophy, so they knew interpretations and qualifications of surrounding world elaborated by rhetoric. Through divisions contained in these works, which by the way are complemented to solutions presented by jurists in their opinions, it is possible to deepen the knowledge on the nature and legal consequences of crimes of passion.

Abstract: I intend to show in this artile a systematic analysis about the Municipal Legislation of the Emperor Julian: Curias and Decurions. I will also explain some laws of the imperial administration which are articular with the laws forementioned.
Keywords: Legislation; Julian's Empire.

Protéger la possession des biens meubles et immeubles d’une personne étrangère à Rome, à l’Époque classique romaine constitue, de notre perspective, une noble conception juridique qu’une cité puisse en exprimer dans sa politique vis-à-vis des étrangers.

La propriété romaine supposait des nombreux débats. C’était une institution très complexe du point de vue politique.

La possession supposait des nombreuses évaluations factuelles. C’était une institution très complexe du point de vue juridique.

Rome avait agi au sens de la protection de la possession, donc, de la paix sociale, et, par cela, elle avait agi le vois humaniste de la factualité non-politique (d’oportunité, au sens du Gaius).

La possession est une institution humaniste et universaliste par définition. En protégeant la possession, la bonne foi, la liberté des affaires et l’équité universelle, Rome avait protégé quelques unes des valeurs juridiques qui représentent le squelette de l’idéologie des droits fondamentaux de l’Homme contemporain.

L’actio Publiciana, par l’intermède des deux fictions juridiques qu’elle implique (l’usucapion instantanée et celle de la citoyenneté Romaine pour des circonstances juridictionnelles d’opportunité)  représente l’épitomé de cet humanisme juridique avant la lettre. Celui-ci est un humanisme juridique qui anticipe l’humanisme européen de l’époque moderne, un «humanisme » connu par la Dacia Felix, Tres Daciae, et respectivement, Dacia Romana pendant l’époque de son genèse, cela classique.

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