Domitius Ulpianus

A leading lawyer, writer, and imperial office-holder of the Severan dynasty, Ulpian is considered the most influential Roman jurist. Because of his clarity, well-documented and comprehensive works, and proximity in time to Justinian, Ulpian’s writings were the main source for the Digest: more than two-fifths of the material selected by the compilers came from Ulpian.

Ulpian came from Tyre (Syria). He was secretary of petitions under Septimius Severus; praefectus annonae (supervisor of the grain supply), possibly under Elagabalus (at the beginning of 222); and praetorian prefect under Alexander Severus the same year. Mutinous guards assassinated him, probably in 223. An inscription from Tyrus set up in his honor was discovered in 1988.

Ulpian wrote two extensive commentaries: one on the praetorian edict (Ad edictum praetoris) in eighty-one books and another on Sabinus’s civil law (Ad Sabinum) in fifty-one books. Ulpian also wrote some teaching works, including an elementary introduction to the law (Institutiones) and a work on disputationes in ten books. Ulpian wrote many short works on private law, administrative law, criminal law, and tax law. Some spurious works were attributed to him, for instance the Six Books on Ulpian's Opinions (Ulpiani Opinionum libri VI), produced around 330 ce.

Ulpian combined pragmatic solutions to legal problems with a good intellectual and theoretical approach. He understood law both as an appro­priate technique for doing justice and as a real theoretical science based on principles. His philosophical views, deeply influenced by Stoicism, were ega­litarian, and they helped resolve the new legal challenges arising from the extension of citizenship by the Antonine Constitution (212 ce). Ulpian tried to convert Roman law into a more cosmopolitan legal system in accordance with the needs of a multicultural society and based on the values of liberty, dignity, universality, and equality. In this sense, Tony Honore considers him a pioneer of the human rights movement.