appendix b Representativeness of Compilation

my compilation of laws is not all-inclusive in that it does not represent the entire body of public law proposals ever considered in ancient Rome. Rather, it consists of the body of proposals of law and enacted laws available at the time of my research.

There are basically two kinds of errors that can creep into studies based on a number of items drawn from what is obviously a larger body of the particu­lar items: sampling errors, or errors caused by some biased method of collect­ing the test items; and non-sampling errors, which in the case of my study would mean errors of reportage. In regard to sampling errors, my compilation is not strictly speaking based on a sample in any modern statistical sense. Further­more, the findings of my study depend not on statistical tests that assume a ran­dom sample but on patterns that can be drawn from the accumulation of all extant public laws at particular times and on historical “snapshots” of the law­making process at crucial times.

More challenging to the integrity of my compilation is the second kind of possible error, namely, non-sampling error, especially in regard to potential bias in the recording of the reported public law proposals and enacted laws. It is clear that the present availability of recorded proposals of law and enacted laws was determined to a significant degree by reportage, specifically by the inter­ests of selected prominent Roman authors. Arguably, therefore, the patterns discernible in lawmaking activity reflect changes in the volume of existing infor­mation about different periods of Roman history.

To test the impact of ancient reportage I examined my overall compilation in light of the contribution of ancient authors. The numbers of laws reported by six of the most important, including the four most prolific, ancient recorders of lawmaking activity—Cicero, Livy, Cassius Dio, Appian, Plutarch, and Poly­bius, in order of volume of reportage—organized by quarter century divisions, are shown in table B.i. Overall these six authors account for 359 of all recorded laws between 300 and 25, more than three out of four laws from our compila­tion for the period (columns 7 and 8, table B.i). As to individual patterns, Cicero alone is responsible for recording 210, nearly 45 percent of all laws for the period of which we are aware. Despite considerable gaps in the more than 100 books in which he wrote his history of Rome, ab urbe condita, Livy is sec­ond at 139, or almost 30 percent, of all recorded laws. Next in order of volume come Cassius Dio with 104 (22 percent), followed by Appian at 80 (17 per­cent), Plutarch at 79 (almost 17 percent), and Polybius at a distance with a mere 10, or 2 percent of all recorded laws (table B.i).

That there should be significant overlap between these authors is under­standable: with the exception of Cicero all of them are derivative sources (and Cicero, too, is derivative when he informs us about long-ago laws). We

Representativeness of Compilation 447

are relatively certain about the sources of information available to these authors when their knowledge of the laws and proposals they report is not firsthand. Polybius (ca. 200-118), the earliest of our authors and a Greek, drew on some non-Roman sources but also on a number of Roman annalists, includ­ing Fabius Maximus Pictor, and the traditions recounted by Romans of his acquaintance, including a leading Roman antiquarian of the day, L. Furius Philus. When referring to public laws of earlier generations of Romans, Cicero (106-43) drew on the annalists and Roman traditions. Livy (59-CE 17 or 64-CE 12) drew on the annalists and Polybius as well as on Roman traditions; Appian (late first-early second century CE) on an unknown annalist, Polybius, Posi­donius, Sallust, Asinius Pollio, and to a lesser extent Livy; Plutarch (ca. CE 50-120) on a wide variety of autobiographies and published orations as well as earlier historians depending on whose biography he was writing; and Cassius Dio (late second-early third century CE) on the annalists and Livy.

Tables B.2 and B.3 present the numbers of laws selected by Cicero and Livy, respectively, and compare them to the selections made by the other four authors for selected periods. Significantly, as we see in table B.2, Cicero and Livy, as Romans living in the period of the late Republic and the reign of Augustus, respectively, and privy to the traditions, conventions, and assumptions of their times, overlap in 49 cases, that is, 24 percent of Livy's laws are recorded by Cicero (column 2, table B.2), while Livy repeats 49, or 36 percent, of Cicero's laws (column 2, table B.3). Of the 104 (22 percent) of all recorded laws given to us by Cassius Dio, a Roman senator from Bithynia and thus a member of the Roman ruling class, 28 are also listed by Livy (column 3, table B.3), while 58 are listed by Cicero (column 3, table B.2).

As a Greek at a considerably greater remove from Roman traditions than the later Greeks under the empire—Appian, Plutarch, and Cassius Dio—Poly­bius provides an instructive contrast to all other authors in our select list. One of a thousand leading Greeks taken hostage in 167 and deported to Rome, Poly­bius lived for the rest of his long life in Rome, as protege of P Cornelius Scipio

Aemilianus, where he wrote an account of Rome's rise to world power. Notwith­standing his reliance on Roman sources of information, the finished product as we have it, in fragmentary state, exhibits considerably less interest in the activ­ities of Rome's lawmaking assemblies than in Roman authors. This can only be a reflection of the interests of his anticipated Greek audience. Compare Poly­bius and Livy, both of whose histories are extant for much of the period from 224 to 175—Polybius passim and Livy in books 21-45. Both authors focus on the wars in the Greek East throughout the period. While Livy mentions 56 laws in his coverage of those years, Polybius records only a handful (5). Roman pub­lic lawmaking activity was understandably of greater importance to a Roman of any period than to a Greek from outside the Roman state. Overall the reliance by ancient authors on common derivative sources did not of itself predetermine the selection of similar laws for inclusion in their writings.

Either through the accident of survival or deliberation, the listing of laws we have for each of our ancient authors is selective. As we might expect given the extensive preservation of his various writings Cicero leads the group as the most prolific: others were scarcely less comprehensive in their listings but for the accident of survival. If we had all of Livy's voluminous history of Rome, for example, it is not hard to imagine that he would have been the most diligent of recorders, exceeding even the voluble Cicero. As it is, Livy's reportage of laws in the earlier periods surpasses that of Cicero. Outsiders like Polybius had distinct habits of reportage. Nevertheless, the fact that more than half of all laws in our study were recorded by only one ancient author suggests a notewor­thy level of independence in making decisions as to what laws from a particu­lar period to include in their works.

TABLE B.1 Number of Laws Reported by Selected Ancient Authors for Selected Periods, 300—25, by Number and Percentage

Source: See appendix A.

^aTotals in column 7 do not equal the sum of columns 1 to 6 because of overlap between authors.

TABLE B.2 Number of Laws Reported by Cicero and Selected Ancient Authors for Selected Periods, 300-25, with Overall Total and Percentage