CONCLUSIONS

No small part of the Noctes’s enduring charm for modern readers is accounted for by the deft way Gellius builds, cumulatively, his recalled and current authorial personae. Piece by piece, we are given glimpses of someone with a vague biography but distinct interests, from whom performances of and opportunities for learning prompt increasingly recognisable responses.

edicta veterum praetorum sedentibus forte nobis in bibliotheca templi Traiani et aliud quid requirentibus cum in manus incidissent, legere atque cognoscere libitum est. (11.17.1)

The edicts of the ancient praetors just happened to fall into my hands one day when I was sitting in the library of Trajan’s temple, looking for something else entirely, and it pleased me to read and get to grips with them.

This is the very mira quaedam in cognoscendo suavitas et delectatio that Cicero’s Crassus assured his audience accompanies legal study (De Oratore 1.193). It is not part of the training of an orator; it is, instead, the turn toward author­ity, the pursuit of ‘immense portraits of antiquity’, that ensures for a man of learning, responsibility and legal negotium an awareness of Roman custom, values and language throughout history. And it is, in Crassus’s terms, a direct encounter with the Roman cultural heritage that has made them the rulers of the world.

Why read jurists in the Noctes? It is very rarely to help answer a legal question - those may well have other answers. The question is instead, why not read jurists? Why deprive oneself of the impressive antiquarian and linguistic learning, the unique insight into values and institutions, and the surprising and interesting material that lurks in the pages of Labeo, Capito, Sabinus and others? Juristic literature is, in the classic formulation of adver­tisements for breakfast cereals in the United States, part of this complete diet - a distinct and irreplaceable element of a larger intellectual lifestyle for the learned gentleman of Antonine Rome.

The jurists understand ancient speech and mos maiorum because these are essential to the interpretation of law. Gellius fixates on this antiquar­ian quality in jurisprudence and expands it - in spite of the rising tide of intellectual professionals, most notably grammatici, who seem to haunt him with their restrictive self-definition, he knows the disciplines never had true boundaries.^[66] He identifies a distinction among contemporary jurists between those who still regard the Twelve Tables (and accompanying tradi­tions) as relevant, and those who use the lex Aebutia (16.10.8) as an excuse to ignore them; and into that distinction, which might seem like one of intra-disciplinary concerns, inserts a provocative and assertive claim to key cultural values.^[67] The right sort of jurists, for various reasons, are those who take advantage of the deep and authoritative claim to antiquarian enquiry that characterises their profession.

The elite intellectual gentleman has studied certain disciplines in his edu­cation, and in his social life has the optional acquaintance of experts in both these and others. This generates a wide array of questions with an equally wide array of stakes. Gellius is interested to short-circuit certain assump­tions about which disciplines can answer which questions, and thus the law teaches non-legal knowledge as much as non-legal knowledge helps with the practice of law. Gellius is perhaps concerned with no moment in one’s intel­lectual lifestyle more than when a question has arisen and the student’s hand hovers uncertainly in front of the bookshelf. The professional title of the author is as poor a guide as the title of the book: a Roman curious about his customs or language would do well to reach for a book on law.

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