Greek impact on Roman law

The influence of Greek civilization on Roman law is clear but complex and problematic. Paradoxically, Romans began to appreciate Greek culture just as Greek civilization began to decline.

In the specific field of Roman law, according to an ancient tradition, the commission charged to draw up the Roman code of the Twelve Tables (451-450 bce) traveled from Rome to Athens to study and analyze in depth the laws of Solon, and they actually incorporated some of those precepts. In 155 bce, a delegation of relevant members of the Athenian Peripatetic, Aca­demic, and Stoic schools visited and spoke before the Roman Senate. Of these schools, the Stoic was the main source of influence on Roman legal education.

Founded in Athens by Zeno of Citium in the early third century bce, Stoic teaching was based on the idea that reason constitutes the essential nature of human beings. This idea is summed up in the famous Stoic maxim, “Live according to nature.” The Scipionic circle developed this Stoic view of the world. This circle was a kind of literary society patronized by Scipio Aemilianus (185-129 bce), extremely active in the middle of the second century bce, and composed of philosophers, poets, and politicians who promoted Greek culture and values. The Stoic spirit also animated almost all the Roman jurists and many of the Roman thinkers during both the Republic and the Empire (cicero, Seneca, Marcus Aurelius).

Roman jurists made little use of Greek philosophy in general, but Greek thought stimulated them, especially during the Hellenistic period of Roman jurisprudence, from the close of the Second Punic War (201 bce) to the beginning of the Principate by Octavian (27 bce). One of the most important intellectual tools Roman jurists received from the Greeks was the dialectical method. According to this mode of argumentation, material should be orga­nized in an orderly system by a process of division and subdivision into genera and species. The criteria of classification were made by establishing differences, on the one hand, and analogies or affinities, on the other. The conception of the law of nations (ius gentium), and the aedilitian edict, with important innovations in the law of sale, are among other things, good examples of the influence of Greek law upon Roman law. Another notable contribution of Greek ideas to Roman law was the supremacy of intention or will (voluntas) over words (verba). As the jurist Celsus put it, “knowing the laws does not mean simply grasping the words, but their force and scope” (D. 1.3.17: “scire leges non hoc est verba earum tenere, sed vim ac potesta­tem”). Finally, the Roman concept of equity (aequitas) deserves mention as a concrete specification of the Greek concept epieikeia.

lustitia

The Roman jurists did not develop a theory of the foundations of justice, and they did not discuss its nature, as Greek philosophers did. Although in their high moral consciousness Roman jurists captured the concept of substantive justice, they rarely appealed to the ethical foundations of justice, probably because of the simplicity of their legal style and their intuitive resistance to abstraction. In their instructional writings, they just accommodated Greek philosophy to the Roman spirit and character.

Unlike the Roman jurists, cicero, who classified himself as a thinker working outside of jurisprudence (Brutus 41.151; Pro Murena 13, 29-30; De oratore 41.141), explored the idea of justice in his dialogue De officiis [On duties, 44 bce], in which he considered this virtue the most distinguished of all of them (De officiis 1.20).

Basic legal concepts and values 7 two aspects: one negative and another positive. The negative aspect demands not doing any harm to anyone, unless provoked by a wrongful or unlawful act. The positive requires using common things as common and private things as private. Any taking of private property constitutes a violation of human fellowship, and therefore it is a genuine injustice (De officiis 1. 21). Justice also demands treating our opponents with respect and honesty. Even those adver­saries who have wronged someone must be treated morally. Vengeance and punishment must be limited. These duties of justice are to be observed even with regard to slaves, who should be treated as if they were employees (De officiis 1.41).

In relation to warfare, Cicero held that war must be the last resort after all negotiations have failed. The proper concern of human beings, who are not beasts, is to resolve conflicts by negotiation and not by force. For this reason, discussions to avoid war are always more desirable than the force of war itself (De officiis 1.34). War should be formally announced and declared, and can be justified only when one party has been grievously wronged by another. Promises made to the enemy must be faithfully kept. During war, the foe has to be treated mercifully, and after the end of the conflict, the vanquished party should be given fair treatment, including the possibility of receiving citizenship, as the Romans’ forebears did with the Tusculani, the Aequi, the Volsci, or the Sabini (De officiis 1.35).

Relying predominantly on Stoic philosophy, and consequently on Ciceronian definitions, the jurist Ulpian defined justice as “the perpetual and constant will to give to each his or her own” (D. 1.1.10 pr = Inst. 1.1pr: “constans et perpetua voluntas ius suum cuique tribuendi”).

lus

The word ius is derived from Jupiter or Jove (in Latin: Iuppiter; genitive: Iovis). In ancient Roman religion and myth, Jupiter was the god of sky and thunder, the king of the gods, and the chief deity of the Roman state religion, laws, and social order. However, Hugo Grotius (De iure belli ac pacis. Prole­gomena 13 note 3) preferred the derivation of ius from the word iussum (command), just as the word os (bone) was a shortening of ossum. Though interesting, Grotius’s etymology is incorrect.

Ius is an ambiguous word that could be used in singular (ius) or plural (iura). There is no Greek equivalent for the Latin word ius, nor does it have an exact equivalent in English, although many English words come from ius: justice, jurisprudence, jurist, adjudication, jurisdiction, among others. Most of the time, ius should be translated as “law” (or “the laws”), in the objective sense of a legal order or whole body of norms, rules, and standards, but sometimes it can mean “right,” in the many subjective senses of this English word. In the broadest sense, ius embraced the whole of the Roman legal

system (iura populi Romani). Ius could also refer to a field of the law: public, private, natural, and so on, or even to an exceptional provision for certain groups of people (ius singulare). Ius can indicate the status of a person, whether legally independent (sui iuris) or under the power of another (alieni iuris). Ius also referred to the place where the praetor administers the law. For instance, the expression in ius vocatio (calling the defendant before the magistrate) was the technical term in Roman law for the act by which civil proceedings were initiated.

The legitimacy of ius lay in the tradition of the Roman community recog­nized by citizens. Norms, rules, standards, and statutes were not properly a new creation of the legal order but an expression of the vitality of that tradi­tion of ideas, usages, and customs (mores maiorum).

From the fourth century, the participle derectum (or directum) was intro­duced into legal vocabulary to describe the perfection of justice and fairness. In the term derectum, the moral and the juridical dimensions are indissolubly connected. Directum means “directed,” “guided,” “correct.” Ius directum (right law) is the law that determines the right direction, the good way, the correct path for citizens to follow in social intercourse. Specifically, it referred to law that embodied the values of stoicism and, particularly, of Christianity.

From directum comes the English word right, the German word Recht, the Spanish word derecho, the French word droit, the Italian word diritto, and the Portuguese word direito, among others. It can be said that ius expresses the religious origin of law, whereas derectum (right) represents the inescapable relation between law and morality. In the idea of a right, the moral and legal connotations are inseparable, as rights touch upon personal claims and social order alike.

Ius publicum and ius privatum

The distinction between public and private law was not of any technical sig­nificance for Roman jurists, but it was a general classification rooted in Greek thought. Because of its ambiguity, the exact delimitation between public law and private law is of great complexity.

Basic legal concepts and values 9

When jurists used both public law and private law together, they were referring to the whole of the Roman legal system.

Ulpian (D. 1.1.1.2 = Inst. 1.1.4) roughly defined public law as the law that regarded the state of the Roman commonwealth (quod ad statum rei Romanae spectat). By contrast, he defined private law as the law governing relations between private individuals (ad singulorum utilitatem). In general, public law was established for the interest of the political community or the people. It covered everything that was not concerned with the private interest of indivi­dual citizens. Public law dealt with the constitution, administration, and functioning of the Roman political community. It integrated and combined religion and administration of the political community. It was concerned with magistrates, priests, and sacred things. Public law basically emanated from legislative organs: popular assemblies, the Senate, and the emperor.

While public law was a collective product of generations of senators and magistrates, private law was a manifestation of the free will of the individual. It was an expression of individual rights and freedoms, though it was not governed just by self-interest. The idea of moral duty did not disappear from it. Roman jurists devoted their interest and efforts mainly to private law, not to pubic law. The distinction between private and public law was increasingly developed beginning in the second half of the second century as a result of the elaboration of a science of administrative law by emperors and the central bureaucracy.

The most important practical difference between Roman public law and private law was that “public law cannot be changed by agreements concluded between private individuals” (Papinian, D. 2.14.38). However, at the heart of both public and private law lay the idea that public law could not eclipse or replace private law.

In Roman law, public law was an expansion of private law, and not vice versa, because the individual - the citizen - and not the political community was the center of the Roman legal system. Public law proceeded from private law. This original model of the construction of the law, from the bottom up and not from the top down, ought to be transferred to all legal spheres, including global law in our own day.

It was Roman private law, and not public law, that prevailed in the civil law tradition, especially in continental Europe, after the fall of the Roman Empire. Still, many aspects of Roman public law inspired political thinkers as well as important legal documents, including the Constitution of the United States. In our day, Roman public law constitutes a source of inspiration for global constitutionalism.

Ius civile

The expression ius civile (civil law) is ambiguous. Etymologically, it means the law of the Roman citizens, the law that binds only the Romans. In earlier times, civil law was a synonym of ius Quiritium, which was the primitive law

of the Romans. Quirites (singular quiris, “spear”) was the name of the citizens of ancient Rome. In this sense, civil law was the law of individuals who were full Roman citizens, the law of their rights and duties. In the Republican period, ius civile was often used as a synonym for private law, but in a narrow sense: civil law referred to the body of rules the Roman jurists developed by means of interpretation. The earliest treatises of civil law addressed almost exclusively topics of private law. Civil law was the body of law the jurists made, in contraposition to the sacral law (ius sacrum, pontificium), the prae­torian law (ius honorarium or ius praetorium), the natural law (ius naturale), and the law of nations (ius gentium). Ulpian, in Digest 1.1.6, differentiated the civil law, which he considered proprium or local (ius proprium, id est civile), from a common law comprising both the law of nations and natural law.

In the Middle Ages, the expression “civil law” was identified with Roman law in contraposition to particular laws of different European territories, English common law, and canon law. Civil law and English common law would, in time, become jurisdictionally exclusive to the point that the defining mark of civil law would be that it was not common law, and that of common law that it was not civil law. English common lawyers ultimately treated all that was not properly English law (with the exception of canon law) as civil law. The chief difference between them was that while civil law developed fundamentally in the nascent universities, English common law developed out of the practices of the royal judges. The combination of canon law, feudal law, and Roman law formed the European ius commune, which was the common legal system of legal thought in Western Europe between 1100 and 1800. Jurists and theologians then agreed that the two aspects of justice, the divine and the human, were deeply related. Ironically, Roman law started being a law proper to the Romans in opposition to other common laws (natural law and law of nations) only to then become part of the European common law in opposition to the particular laws of different political communities.

Ius naturale

Deeply inspired by the doctrines of Plato, Aristotle, and the Stoics, Cicero provided the most complete theory of natural law. According to Cicero (De legibus 3.17-19), law (ius) could not be derived from the Twelve Tables, the praetor’s edict, or other Roman legal sources, but arose from the deepest recesses of philosophy. The law could not be confined to the narrow corner of civil law. Among the most important principles of justice were that law represents rational principles, inherent in nature, that enjoin what ought to be done and forbid the opposite. Law is a natural force, the reason of the wise man, and the criterion of justice and injustice. Because there is nothing superior to reason, and reason is present in both God and humanity, there is a basic partnership between divine reason and human reason (De legibus 1. 23). Those who share reason share the law, and those who share the law share justice. This law, in harmony with nature, Cicero argued, is unchanging

Basic legal concepts and values 11 and eternal; it cannot be invalidated, nor can it be in any way amended, nor can it be rescinded altogether. No decree of the Senate or decision of the people can exempt human beings from the fulfillment of natural law, and no individual needs anyone else to explain or expound it (De re publica 3.33). There will not be, Cicero insisted, “one such law in Rome and another in Athens, one now and another in the future, but all peoples at all times will be embraced by a single and eternal and unchangeable law; and there will be, as it were, one lord and master of all of us - the God who is the author, sup­porter, and interpreter of that law. Whoever refuses to obey it will be turning his back on himself” (De re publica 3.33). Based on the idea of natural law, Cicero affirmed that even a statute properly enacted should not take away the most basic rights of Roman citizens, including their freedom (Pro Caecina, 33.95-97).

Unlike Cicero, however, Roman jurists did not develop dogmatically or systematically the idea of natural law, but they often used the concept in different fields of legal interpretation. Hundreds of texts in their legal literature referred to natural law, natural reason, the nature of things, and other expressions of this sort. According to Roman jurists, natural law does not imply any specific conception of law, or a concrete system of legal rules, but indicates a way of interpreting reality. “Natural” means what is reasonable according to the human standards of knowledge, behavior, or social expectations and therefore does not demand further evidence.

Based on natural interpretation, Roman jurists defended the idea that persons who have not yet reached puberty must be taken care of by someone else (Gaius 1.189); that an insane person could not make or accept a promise (Gaius, D. 44.7.1.12); that persons related by blood were tied together (Modestinus, D. 38.10.14.2); that individuals have the right of self-defense against an existing attack (Gaius, D. 9.2.4pr.); that no one is obliged to per­form the impossible (Celsus, D. 50.17.185); that something belonging to nobody or captured in war becomes the property of the first person to take possession of it (Gaius 2.66, 69); and that the union of a man and a woman is called marriage (Ulpian, D. 1.1.1.3).

Natural law played an important role in regulating slavery, which is the primary example of an institution contrary to nature but recognized by the law of nations. By nature, and therefore in accordance with natural law, all human beings are equal and free. Because slaves are human beings, slavery is against natural law. Under civil law and the law of nations, however, slaves are considered things, not persons, and are therefore not subjects but objects of rights. Following the Stoic outlook, Ulpian affirmed that all human beings are free and should live in accordance to nature: “as far as concerns the civil law, slaves are regarded as nonexisting [persons]; not, however, in the natural law, because as far as concerns the natural law, all men are equal” (D. 50.17.32; see also Ulpian, D. 1.1.4pr.). Florentinus (D. 1.5.4pr.) also insisted that, although slavery was an institution of the law of nations, it is contrary to nature for one man to be the property of another.

Ius gentium

The general rule of antiquity was that the law of a community (civil law) was applied only to the members of that community, and that the stranger was without rights. In the absence of a treaty with a foreign community, a Roman could seize a foreigner as a slave, and foreign property belonged to the first Roman comer as goods without an owner.

It was Cicero, again, who applied the Greek philosophical system to inter­national relations, coining the expression ius gentium in the process. The most significant mention can be found in the moral essay De officiis 3.17.69. After speaking of society in the broad sense as uniting all people with each other, Cicero referred to lesser societies made up of gentes, or those formed into cities. Finally, Cicero pointed out that the ancients desired two kinds of law: the law of nations and civil law - the former ideally being a part of the latter. Cicero considered the law of nations to be the juridical embodiment of nature. For him, the ius gentium oscillated between the two great coordinates of human justice set down by the Greek philosophers and refined by the Roman jurists: natura and fides. People should follow nature as they follow a ruler; they should observe faith and trust (fides) as the cornerstone of justice (De officiis 1.1.23).

Two decades younger than Cicero, Sallust employed the expression ius gentium in his famous narration of Rome’s war against Jugurtha, the king of Numidia, written about 40 bce, four years after Cicero’s De officiis. Livy, however, offered further confirmation. He employed the expression ius gentium some forty times to refer, sometimes imprecisely, to the relationship between Rome and other peoples of the world through ambassadors and treaties. The prohibition of the maltreatment or killing of ambassadors (4.17.4); the possibi­lity of noxal surrender of a legate who misbehaves in the territory where his mission takes him (5.36.6); observance of treaties (4.19.3); and lawful defense against armed attacks not preceded by declarations of war (42.41.11) - all were for Livy characteristic issues in the law of nations. The idea of ius gentium was especially developed in the areas of commercial law, the law of contracts, the law of treaties, the law of diplomacy, and the law of war. However, Roman law of family and succession remained basically intact.

Seneca and Tacitus used the expression ius gentium, as did the jurists of the second century: Celsus, Gaius, and Cervidius Scaevola. In the beginning of the third century, Papinian and Triphoninus - advisers to Emperor Septimius Severus - and Ulpian also used it. Of all these, one passage in Gaius and one in Ulpian deserve some attention because of the part they played in the history of the concept’s subsequent development.

Gaius spoke of ius gentium at the beginning of his Institutes (1.1.1) and contrasted it, as did Cicero, with ius civile. Gaius said that civilized peoples - that is, those organized according to law and custom - govern themselves partly by their own law and partly by the law common to all people. The law proper to the city is civil law; the one established by natural reason among all

Basic legal concepts and values 13 people is called the law of nations because of its universal observance. Natural reason determines, in the abstract, what the law of nations is or could be, and its enforced general application among nations makes it so concretely. With Ulpian, however, Cicero’s and Gaius’s bipartite division becomes tripartite (civil law, law of nature, law of nations). According to Ulpian (D. 1.1.1.3), the reason for this is that the law of nations would be common only to people, whereas the natural law would in general encompass animals as well.

The application of ius civile throughout the Roman Empire, particularly under the Antonine Constitution of 212 ce, which extended Roman citizenship to all inhabitants of the empire, meant that the importance of the distinction between the law of nations and civil law would gradually fade. The Emperor Justinian adopted Gaius’s definition of ius gentium and its later three-way division by Ulpian in the sixth century in his Institutes (1.2.1) and Digest (1.1.1.2). Later, these passed through the Byzantine Empire to medieval Europe with the discovery of the Digest. In the West, Isidore of Seville (560-636) was the vessel transmitting Gaius’s concept of the ius gentium.

Ius fetiale

Precursor of the ius gentium was the fetial law (ius fetiale). Fetials were members of a college of priests, ranked just below the pontifical college and the augural college. The college of fetials was created in the Monarchy to be responsible for the religious conduct of international relations. It contained twenty lifetime members who were chosen by co-optation from noble families. The fetials upheld the fetial law, the sacral law concerning the international relations (Cicero, De officiis 1.36 and Livy 9.9.3). They prepared the formal demand of a foreign community for restitution of wrongs, and they acted as public ambassadors of the Roman people.

Whenever the fetials con firmed that the gods had made a judgment in favor of the Romans, they were responsible for demanding satisfaction from the foreign community. The demand was repeated three times at intervals of ten days. If restitution was not made, the college of fetials certified to the Senate the existence of a just and pious cause of war (bellum iustum et pium). Nevertheless, responsibility for determining war rested with the Senate. As a declaration of war, one of the fetials called the pater patratus threw a spear, which had been dipped in blood, into enemy territory and recited a ritual formula (Livy 1.32.13). But the fetials did not play any role in conducting the war or in accepting the surrender of an enemy city. They were only emissaries of peace. The bronze tablet from Alcantara (Caceres, Spain), discovered in 1983 and kept at the Caceres Museum, registers the surrender made in 104 bce to Lucius Caesius, the governor of Hispania Ulterior, by the Spanish community of Seano. In the tablet, however, there is no mention of the fetials. Fetial law was not instrumental in the process of world domination but was important in the legitimation of international relations.

Fas

A fundamental concept in Roman religion, fas referred to the lawfulness of human conduct before the deities. Its antonym, nefas, meant the violation of a divine prohibition that could trigger the vengeance of the gods on the offender. Unlike human law and divine law, ius and fas were not opposite terms, since both expressed a permissibility of conduct in accordance with the gods. Fas was thus both distinct from and related to ius. We can find the intrinsic rela­tionship between the two terms in the famous statement fas et iura sinunt (religion and law allow it) used by Virgil (Georgica 1.269), or in the expression ius fasque (lawful and proper) used by Plautus (Cistellaria 20).

At the core of Roman law was the strong conviction that the divine and the legal are intrinsically linked; thus, the legal order expresses only a portion of a much broader normative domain. After the first stage of the long process of secularization of the idea of ius, ius and fas began to operate in separate provinces - fas in the religious realm, and ius only in the realm of human conduct in relation to other humans. Nevertheless, the link between the human and the divine was never broken. According to the Roman approach, the gods continued supporting the process of creating the legal order although they no longer directly created the law. The idea of a religious legal system (divine law, pontifical law, sacral law, and so on) including the notion of fas in contrast with the secular legal system (ius humanum) was developed only in later antiquity (see Isidore of Seville, Etymologiae 5.2.l2).

In Roman calendars, dies fasti (marked F) were the days of the month on which it was permissible to transact legal affairs, and the magistrate was allowed to give judgments. The name was further expanded to the days on which summoning the popular assemblies (comitia) and the Senate (dies comitiales) was allowed.

Jurisprudentia

Jurisprudentia is the legal science developed by Roman jurists. Inspired by Greek philosophy, it was defined by Ulpian as “the knowledge of things divine and human, of the just and unjust” (D. 1.1.10.2 = Inst. 1.1.1).

Roman legal science emerged in the middle of the Republic, grew up in the turbulent period of the late Republic, and greatly developed in the Principate, especially under the peace and economic prosperity of the administrations of Trajan, Hadrian, and the Antonine dynasty (138-93 ce). The legal science of the Principate is usually called “classical.”

Rome was the first political community in which jurists emerged. The construction of Roman law was an undertaking of a relatively small and specialized group of jurists deeply involved in political affairs, administration, and legal practice. They discussed legal cases and provided legal opinions based on reasoned argument. In legal writings, it was common for jurists to cite one another’s legal opinions to persuade their colleagues. These jurists

Basic legal concepts and values 15 were the true architects of the impressive and solid edifice of Roman law. In this sense, Roman law constituted a true jurist’s law, a Juristenrecht, to use the German expression. Roman jurists focused on creating and developing the law, not on philosophical speculations and legal abstractions. Nor were they interested in comparative law, foreign law, or legal history.

Classical legal science applied common techniques and methods. The legal vocabulary the jurists used was consistent and homogeneous to the point that the imprint of particular jurists, even in the case of the leading jurists (Sabinus, Julian, Papinian), is barely noticeable. Individual style, however, varied: Celsus was identified for his elegant and epigrammatic style; Julian for his sober, clear, and simple style; Cervidius Scaevola for his brevity and absence of reasons for decisions; Papinian for his terseness and precision. The degree of originality was also different: Labeo, Sabinus, and Julian were extremely innovative jurists; Pomponius and Ulpian, however, were less creative than the previous ones.

The elaboration of a jurisprudential law demanded: a) instruction of new jurists by professional teachers; b) the capacity of jurists to assume ultimate responsibility for the quality of legal doctrines; c) freedom of discussion and disputation and, as a result, the existence of divergent and contradictory opinions among jurists; d) the permanent connection of jurists with the daily administration of the law; and e) the elaboration of a literature to nourish the continuity of a well-educated group of jurists with a comprehensive knowledge of the whole legal corpus.

Mores maiorum

The Romans possessed a special veneration for tradition, precedent, and authority. They esteemed ancestral customs (mores maiorum), the ways of their forebears, and their tradition of usages and ideas, particularly in the field of law. They kept a notable spirit of traditionalism. The Romans were reluctant to abolish any valid law, because they considered their ancestors part of the Roman people. They had a deeply rooted distaste of unnecessary changes and greatly distrusted novelty. They did not like fast innovations, hurried modifica­tions, and revolutionary attitudes. They tried to build on what their ancestors had built, exquisitely respecting key legal decisions adopted in the past. This conservative attitude explains the preservation for centuries of the rigid and severe formalism that characterizes the primitive legal system. An edict of the censor of 92 bce excluding the Latin rhetors (Suetonius, De rhetoribus 1), reveals this fundamental attitude of respect for the legal tradition: “all innova­tions in the usage and customs of our forefathers do not please us or seem proper.” In imperial legislation, references to ancestral customs are frequent.

At the heart of the Romans’ conservatism and respect for tradition lay the idea that justice, as a constant, continual, and perpetual individual and collective will, required careful and gradual historical development. The leader was the people, as an eternal community, and not this or that particular lawgiver. As Cicero explained through Cato the Elder, one of the reasons the

Roman constitution was superior to others is because it was established not by the great ability of a great man but by that of many, and not in the course of one man’s life but over several ages and generations (De re publica 2.1.2). The Roman family was instrumental in passing along the mores maiorum down through the generations.

Probably because of this passionate love for their own tradition, the Romans were not easily attracted by foreign legal institutions and ideas. The Romans adopted foreign law gingerly and cautiously, and they always applied it with an evident and explicit Roman method and style. Early Roman law was customary in nature, and Roman jurists greatly appreciated all equitable usages recognized by their ancestors (mores maiorum). But Roman jurists did not admit customary law in the sense of customs directly binding upon judges. Custom made law only indirectly, through interpretation. It was not an autonomous source of law (see Gaius 1.2), but neither could it be neglected. Emperor Justinian accepted custom as a source of unwritten law, although probably it did not play an important role in the legal practice of his time. Nevertheless, the historical relevance of this inclusion was enormous.

Lex

Different from ius, but complementary to it, was the idea of lex. Cicero (De legibus 1.19) argued that lex comes from choosing and is an essential property of the concept. In relation to private transactions, lex was a particular clause of the contract or a condition imposed on a party. Expressions such as lex venditionis (a condition inserted by a seller in a contract of sale) or lex dona­tionis (a term included by the donor in the act of donation), among others, occur frequently in legal writings.

In the public realm, the primary meaning of lex was a statute. The definition of lex publica offered by Roman jurists was simply descriptive. Ateius Capito defined the public lex as “a general decree of the people (populus), or of the commoners (plebs), answering an appeal made to them by a magistrate” (Gellius, Noctes Atticae 10.20.2). Gaius (1.3) restricted the term lex to “what the people order and decree,” reserving the word plebiscitum to refer to “what the commoners (plebeians) order and establish.”

In Roman law, the distinction between ius and lex was so fundamental that it has been preserved by all languages of civil legal systems: German: Recht and Gesetz; Spanish: derecho and ley; French: droit and loi; Italian: diritto and legge. The reason is that ius was deeply related to auctoritas, whereas lex was profoundly related to potestas. Ius was a product of the moral authority of the jurists, but lex was a product of the coercive power of the magistrates and the assemblies. English, like Greek, has no accurate counterparts to ius and lex. It can be said, however, that ius and lex are more or less related as the body of law (ius) is to a statute (lex).

The volume of Roman legal statutes on private law is particularly small in the classical period because Roman jurists maintained certain reservations

Basic legal concepts and values 17 concerning statutes. Classical Roman law was truly a case-law system, not a statute-law system. It was casuistic in nature. The Roman spirit, unlike the Greek one, was firmly opposed to codification. Inspired by the Hellenistic culture, Pompey and Julius Caesar were captivated by the idea of a codification, but neither proceeded with it.

During the Later Empire (284-476), legislation absorbed all sources of Roman law. As a result, lex began to be used interchangeably with ius to refer to the body of law. The Anglo-American common law tradition conceived law based on the postclassical, more expansive concept of lex.

Auctoritas and potestas

The distinction between moral authority (auctoritas) and constituted power (potestas) was mainly of social character, but sometimes it acquired legal relevance in both private and public Roman law. Auctoritas comes from augere, which means “to increase, to grow, to fulfill.” Auctoritas is the influ­ence that derives from personal respect, wisdom, and virtue without having the legal force of power. Auctoritas is a consequence not only of persuasive speech but also of the nods and gestures that accompany it (Cicero, De senectute 61). Potestas instead comes from the Indo-European lexeme pot­that refers to established power. Paul (D. 50.16.215) stated that “the word potestas has different meanings: in the person of a magistrate, it means supreme political power (imperium); in the person of a child, it means paternal power; in the person of a slave, ownership.”

The division of roles between the auctoritas of augurs, jurists, judges, and senators, on the one hand, and the potestas of magistrates and the paterfa­milias, on the other hand, served to establish not only a wise and healthy political, social, and legal balance in society but also an ontological equili­brium. Because power was considered indivisible by nature (Cicero, De re publica 1.38.60), power as such had to respond to something or someone beyond itself, and be limited by an external agent (i.e., by moral authority). In Rome, one person commanded and a different one authorized. Authority was, therefore, an effective check upon Roman power.

The most primitive manifestation of the distinction between moral authority and power lay in the role of the college of augurs. Augur, from augeo and related to “augment,” denotes the idea of increasing, adding to, expanding, fulfilling what has been not yet fulfilled. The augurs were able to recognize the signs of the will of the gods in the behavior of birds, interpreting these as an indication of divine approval or disapproval of a proposed action. Before making their deci­sions on critical issues, the kings often asked the augural college for advice. Therefore, the sacral authority of the augural college and the political power of the kings formed a propitious unity at the beginning of Roman history. The Republican Senate expanded the role of the earlier college of augurs.

At the heart of the Roman Republican constitution, the relation between authority and power can be found again in the famous initialism SPQR

(Senatus Populusque Romanus): the Senate and People of Rome. The moral authority of the Senate (auctoritas Senatus) effectively limited and controlled the executive power of the magistrates (potestas or imperium), which was a materialization of popular majesty (maiestas Populi). As Cicero pointed out, “a compromise takes place whereby the power is vested in the people, but authority in the hands of the Senate” (De legibus 2.30). We can also find this distinction between authority and power in the dual structure of the classical Roman civil procedure or formulary system: the first stage took place before the magistrate, vested with power, and the second stage before the judge, vested with authority. We also find the distinction between authority and power in the institution of guardianship and even the solemn form of conveyance of own­ership or mancipatio. With the start of the Principate, this well-balanced order based on the relationship between authority and power was substantially altered. Augustus’s decision to rule the Republican institutions with his superior personal moral authority (auctoritas Principis) eventually led to the full identification of authority and power in the person of the emperor.

In some sense, the distinction between power and authority was reborn in the Middle Ages, when royal power was counterpoised by papal authority. The modern nation-state fully identified authority with political power. This is one of the reasons the distinction between authority and power has been blurred in modern languages, including English.

Dignitas

Closely associated with auctoritas is Roman dignity or worthiness (dignitas). Dignitas is the respect, recognition, and deference that people bestowed on the magistrates and senators. It contains the sense of elevation, eminence, admiration, and reputation. Dignitas referred to the high social status of those who held public offices because they were representatives of the political community who had to preserve the law, to administer justice, and to take care of all things entrusted to them (Cicero, De officiis 1.124).

In some sense, Cicero (De officiis 1.106) expanded dignity to all citizens when he considered the superiority and dignity of the human condition over that of the animals. The Romans, however, always recognized degrees of dig­nity as an inherent element of a stratified society. Free people had more dignity than slaves, for instance. Ulpian (D. 1.9.1pr.) stated that men had more dignity than women, and married women more than female concubines (D. 32.49.4). Cicero himself criticized democracy because it does not allow various degrees of dignity (De re publica 1.43).

Aequitas

Greek philosophers developed the idea of equity (in Greek, epieikeia; in Latin, aequitas) quite early, and Aristotle provided the best formulation in Nicomachean Ethics (5.10.1137b; see also Rhetoric 1.13). The strict and

Basic legal concepts and values 19 uncritical interpretation and application of the general law, without considering particular circumstances or the law’s deepest purpose, can be a source of unfairness and hardship. As an appeal to morality, sometimes law should be corrected because it is not possible to generalize accurately. Greek equity provided the corrective and creative element that favored a more benevolent interpretation of law.

The Roman orators rendered Greek epieikeia into Roman aequitas. Cicero pointed out that every boy’s teacher instructed him how to argue in different cases, sometimes for the letter of the statute, sometimes for equity (De oratore 1.57.244). He included aequitas as a part of positive law, as a criterion of correctness of law (Topica 5.28), and he regarded civil law as constitutional fairness (Topica 2.9: aequitas constituta).

Although the Republican jurists knew the Greek idea of equity thoroughly, the distinction between law and equity was pointless for them. The idea of Greek equity was so vague and useless that they could not justify a decision on that basis. Roman lawyers perceived that the law should be interpreted according to standards of reasonableness in any concrete case. So it was not a matter of correcting the law (ius) by equity (aequitas) but of searching for the right solution for the legal issue. For Roman lawyers, aequum est meant nothing else than iustum est, that is, the legal solution for a concrete case in accordance with justice. When a jurist in a legal opinion declared that a solution was “equal” (aequum est) he was confirming that it was right and just, and that such was the law, and that any other decision would be contrary to the law. The fragments of Servius (D. 3.5.20[21]pr.) and Alfenus Varus (D. 44.1.14) appealing to equity to justify the praetorian remedy seem to confirm this idea.

Since the end of the Republic, the Roman idea of aequitas as a founding element of law inspired many legal decisions. Sometimes, however, ius and aequitas appeared separable, with aequitas an external corrective element of law, according to the Greek approach. In Justinian’s law, extensively influenced by Hellenism, Roman aequitas was identified with Greek epieikeia and with new Christian ideals. Ethical values of mercy, benevolence, and compassion, inspired by Christianity, were needed to correct the rigor of the law in the administration of justice.

Utilitas

In Ciceronian thought, public interest (utilitas rei publicae) and stability (salus) were the twofold aims of the law (De inventione 1.68). Public interest served as a principle for the legitimation of new statutes, a standard for legal inter­pretation, and a guideline for jurisprudential activity. Papinian (D. 1.1.7.1.) mentioned public interest as the ultimate ground for the validity of praetorian law, and Ulpian (D. 4.1.2) did not hesitate to put the idea of utilitas at the center of any legal change: “in determining new rules, there ought to be some clear advantage (utilitas) in view, as to whether a law which has been

considered just for a long time is to be modified.” Drawing upon Greek philosophy and the Ciceronian understanding of utilitas, classical jurists abundantly invoked the idea of utilitas (in the general sense of practicality, social interest, and sound policy) as a good reason to explain the acceptance of a concrete and pragmatic legal solution instead of another solution based on strict logical and dogmatic reasoning. They advocated for the validity of some manumissions, testaments, or stipulations as well as the institution of some remedies in cases in which strict interpretation of the law would have denied all of these things. Gaius (3.60), for instance, pointed out that it had been accepted on the basis of sound policy that, although a contract of mandate is discharged by the death of either party, if the mandatary continued to perform the duties after and in ignorance of the mandator’s death, the mandatary could claim reimbursement for expenses from the mandator’s heirs. On the other hand, Ulpian (D. 40.9.1) says that, based on practical grounds, Celsus had accepted the possibility that a man deaf from birth could manumit a slave, although it was obvious that the deaf man would not be able to hear the required legal words of the citizen who claimed the liberty of the slave involved. In both cases, the desire to meet the needs of legal practice led the lawyers to reach for a rationale and a solution beyond the strict application of the rules.

Fides

As a political community and as individual citizens, the Romans were proud of their integrity, honesty, and trustworthiness (fides). To be bound by one’s word and remain faithful to it was the cornerstone of Roman justice: “Do in accordance with your words,” Cicero urged (De officiis 1.23: fit quod dictum est). He considered fides the most sacred component in life (II In Verrem 3.3.6) and the very foundational element of justice (De officiis 1.23).

To extol the significance of fides, around 250 bce the Romans built a temple dedicated to the goddess Fides on the Capitol as near as possible to the temple of Jupiter, the greatest of the Roman deities. Originally, fides was not an ethical concept but a religious one. It meant neither security nor moral reliability but the bondage or submission of a person to the sanctions of the deity. Later, the moral dimension of fides was developed further and began to refer to the ideas of trust, pledge, security, and moral responsibility against any kind of fraudulent behavior. This moral dimension was strengthened with the idea of good faith (bona fides) as a concrete expression of fides applied to contractual relations based on the reciprocal confidence of the parties.

In Roman law, the idea of fides illuminated at least two basic rules. First, legal norms have no retroactive force. In accordance with fides, legal reper­cussions and consequences of future human actions should be expected and certain. Second, the magistrate must be bound by his own norm. For instance, the lex Cornelia (67 bce) bound praetors to their edicts.

Relations based on fides were abundant among the Romans. The relation­ship between a freedman and his patron, or between patrons and clients; the

Basic legal concepts and values 21 contracts of hospitality between individuals, between municipalities, or between individuals and municipalities; the relation of friendship and many con­tractual relations - all were deeply founded in both trust and trustworthiness. But relations based on fides were not just a priori limited to Roman citizens. They also were often with strangers. The concept of ius gentium was a legal development, probably the most relevant, of the idea offides as a requirement of any international legal intercourse. This explains why in the temple of Fides the international treaties Rome adopted and other memorable state documents were placed for safekeeping.

Libertas

The Roman idea of liberty was basically conceived in negative terms, though not exclusively so. For the Romans, freedom meant, first of all, not to be owned by another. Free is the individual without owner, master, or dominus. Libertas is the status of nonslavery, the state of nondomination, the status of a free person and citizen in contrast to the slave. A free person is a master of himself or herself. A free person can serve his or her father but cannot serve a master. A free person can be limited by the power of the magistrate but always under legal guarantees.

By extension, free is the community that is not subject to the tyranny of a despotic royal power, a tyrant, or a foreign power. Historically, libertas emerged as a reaction to royal enslavement, particularly to the arrogance and despotic power of the Tarquins (Cicero, De re publica 2. 46). After the Tarquin family was sent into exile, two consuls, elected by the people and with limited terms of service, replaced the king. Roman libertas was an exclusive feature of the Roman Republic: all other nations could experience conditions of servitude, but not the Romans (Cicero, Philippics 20.20). This was the greatest rule of Rome (Cicero, in Verrem 2.63.163). The Roman people accepted the Principate that Augustus inaugurated because the princeps was not considered an absolute monarch, but a protector of Republican liberty, institutions, and practices.

In a broader and more positive sense, Cicero defined libertas as the power to live as you wish (Cicero, Paradoxa stoicorum 5.1.34: potestas vivendi, ut velis). In the second century ce, the jurist Florentinus (D. 1.5.4pr.), using similar terms, defined libertas as “the natural freedom of doing whatever one pleases unless it is banned by coercion or law.” This definition was repeated in Justinian’s Institutes (1.3.1) in the sixth century. The famous statement of jurist Paul (D. 50.17.106), that “freedom is inestimable,” shows the reluctance to fix a sum on freedom in freedom proceedings.

The Romans often linked the idea of rights and the rights of the people (iura Populi) with the idea of liberty, and they even used the terms inter­changeably. Specifically, liberty was closely related with ownership. Roman power refrained from interference with the private rights of individuals, particu­larly in relation to individual ownership. The institution of expropriation was, for instance, practically unknown to Roman law. Suetonius (Augustus 56)

pointed out that Augustus made his forum narrower than he had planned because he did not venture to eject the owners of the neighboring houses. Another important consequence of this idea of liberty was that the res pub­lica depended broadly on the free individual dynamism and private actions of citizens. Private spontaneous donations and individual gifts played an important role in the development of the city of Rome and other municipalities.

Humanitas

The Latin term humanitas (humanity) appeared for the first time in the Scipionic circle as an original Roman creation, and Cicero especially devel­oped it. Humanitas revealed the Roman interest in the noblest aspects of the human being as the only living creature who participates in reason (De legibus 1.48). Humanitas was a civilizing instinct and one of the hallmarks of the Roman ethos.

The root of the concept can be found in two Greek ideas, philantropia (human kindness) and paideia, that is, the rearing and education in liberal arts and scientific disciplines to foster both active public service and a decent and fulfilling private life. The idea of humanitas referred to the splendor and dignity of the human being, superior to all other beings on the earth. It implied a duty of personal education and respect for others. Homo humanus was the well-educated citizen, familiar with Greek philosophy and culture, and submitted to the civil law as the best way to respect other people. Humanity was not only a form of human conduct but also the goal of per­sonal striving, a personal quality that could be acquired. It required the moral development of human virtues: kindness, mercy, excellence, generosity, good­ness, esteem, recognition, deference. Only those who followed and integrated these standards were really men in the full sense.

The implications of humanitas in Roman law were comprehensive. In the realm of constitutional law, humanitas demanded the rejection of any kind of tyranny because tyranny lacked humanity. The tyrant “is the foulest and most repellent creature imaginable. Although he has the external appearance of a man, he eclipses the wildest beast in the unmitigated savagery of his behavior” (Cicero, De re publica 2.48). In the realm of criminal law, humanity demanded that punishment would be moderated and controlled by the state; that only the guilty would be punished; and that the accused and witnesses should be protected and must not be tortured. The first salient application of humanitas in the penal domain was voluntary exile for the sake of escaping punishment. Voluntary exile did not come into existence by legis­lation but was a de facto creation. In the realm of private law, humanitas demanded a benevolent exercise of one’s rights; respect and consideration of other citizens; mitigation of the costs of extreme adherence to formalism; and a tempering of justice with mercy, and of the rigor of the law with compassion and tenderness.

Elegantia

Etymologically, “elegance” comes from eligere, “to choose.” In the schools of rhetoric, elegance was one of the features of good style. It demanded the correct choice of words in everyday speaking and writing. Elegance searched for harmony and simplicity, for clarity and intelligibility in language. Elegance ruled out exotic and ornamental rhetoric, and also vagueness, distraction, and uncertainty.

Cicero affirmed that, as well as an elegant style, there was a kind of elegant argument (Brutus 22-23; Pro Plancio 58). The capacity of choosing the proper argument was an important characteristic of Roman lawyers. The discussion of cases was the most natural place to display legal elegance. The jurist Maecianus (D. 46.3.103), for instance, considered Julian’s opinion elegant when he argued that a payment of debt could be credited against any debt that the debtor could have been compelled to pay at the time of the payment. Cicero also referred to the elegance of his friend the jurist Servius Sulpicius Rufus (Epistula ad familiares 4.4). Celsus the Younger was an elegant jurist according to Ulpian (D. l.l.lpr.), who had great sensitivity to evaluate elegance. Of the forty-six uses of the word “elegance” in the Digest, forty are Ulpian’s.

As with the jurist, the attribute of elegance could be applied to the legislator. For instance, according to the law of nations, the child followed the status of the mother, unless legislation altered the rule. So, if a free woman cohabited with a male slave with the consent of his owner, the children were free; but according to a provision of the senatus consultum Claudianum, they were slaves. Gaius (1.84) wrote that Emperor Hadrian restored the rule of the law of nations and abolished this provision because of the injustice of the case and the inelegance of the law (inelegantia iuris). In the next paragraph, Gaius (1.85) affirmed that Vespasian also had used the same argument of inelegance against the legislation to restore the validity of the law of nations.

Pietas

Pietas was a religious attitude and a patriotic sense of duty and respect toward gods, parents, and other members of the family. Cicero defined piety as the virtue which “admonishes us to fulfill our duties to our country, our parents, and other relatives” (De inventione 2.22.66). Pietas was a distinctive and quintessential Roman ideal protected by the law and celebrated by Roman literature.

Aeneas’s piety toward the gods and his family was stressed by Virgil (Illiad, 20.298-99; 347-48) and became paradigmatic in the Roman World. Pliny the Elder (Naturalis Historia 7.121), and Valerius Maximus (Memorabilia 5.4.7) referred to the legend of a daughter who was caught in the act of giving her breast milk to her starving and imprisoned mother. Instead of being punished, the daughter was recognized for her filial piety. Pietas Augusta appeared often in coins and inscriptions, and some Romans adopted pius as a family name or cognomen.

Roman law promoted piety. Although the paterfamilias had absolute power over his family, it had to be based on pietas, not savagery (Marcianus, D. 48.9.5). Emperor Trajan forced a father to emancipate his son because the father acted contrary to pietas. When the son died, Trajan denied the father possession of his son’s property, to which he would otherwise have been enti­tled under Roman law (Papinian, D. 27.12.5). On the other hand, children were bound by filial duty, and to treat a parent disrespectfully, i.e., without obedience (obsequium) and submissive respect (reverentia), merited punishment. Imperial law, in general, did not allow family members to testify against each other in court (C.J. 4.20.6, 294 ce); emancipated children could sue their parent only after receiving official authorization (C.J. 2.2.2., 287 ce).

Further reading

Ando, Clifford, Paul J. du Plessis, and Kaius Tuori, eds. The Oxford Handbook of Roman Law and Society. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2016.

Bauman, Richard A. Crime and Punishment in Ancient Rome. London and New York: Routledge, 1996.

Bederman, David J. International Law in Antiquity. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2004.

Bellomo, Manlio. The Common Legal Past of Europe (1000-1800). 2nd ed. Trans­lated by Lydia G. Cochrane. Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 1995.

Berger, Adolf. Encyclopedic Dictionary of Roman Law. Philadelphia, PA: The American Philosophical Society, 1953; reprint 1980.

Berman, Harold J. Law and Revolution: The Formation of the Western Legal Tradition.

Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1983.

Domingo, Rafael. Teoria de la auctoritas. Pamplona: Eunsa, 1987.

Domingo, Rafael. Auctoritas. Barcelona: Ariel, 1999.

Domingo, Rafael. The New Global Law. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge

University Press, 2010.

d’Ors, Alvaro. Derecho privado romano. 10th ed. Pamplona: Eunsa, 2004. d’Ors, Alvaro. Ensayos de teoria politica. Pamplona: Eunsa, 1977.

du Plessis, Paul J., ed. Cicero's Law: Rethinking Roman Law of the Late Republic.

Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2016.

Fiori, Roberto. Bonus vir. Politica, retorica e diritto nel De officiis di Cicerone. Naples: Jovene, 2011.

Giltaij, Jacob. “Greek Philosophy and Classical Roman Law. A Brief Overview.” In The Oxford Handbook of Roman Law and Society, 188-199, edited by Paul de Plessis, Clifford Ando, and Kaius Tuori. Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press, 2016.

Hammer, Dean. Roman Political Thought. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2014.

Helmholz, R. H. Natural Law in Court: A History of Legal Theory in Practice. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2015.

Honore, Tony. About Law: An Introduction. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995.

Honore, Tony. Ulpian: Pioneer of Human Rights. 2nd ed. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2002.

Iglesias, Juan. Espiritu del Derecho romano. 2nd ed. Madrid: Centro de Estudios Ramon Areces, 1991.

Johnston, David, ed. The Cambridge Companion to Roman Law. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2015.

Jolowicz, Herbert Felix. Roman Foundations of Modern Law. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1957; reprint 1978.

Jolowicz, Herbert Felix, and Barry Nicholas. Historical Introduction to the Study of Roman Law. 3rd ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1972.

Kaser, Max. Das romische Privatrecht. 2 vols. 2nd ed. Munich: Beck Verlag, 1971 and 1975.

Kelly, John M. A Short History of Western Legal Theory. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992.

Kingsbury, Benedict, and Benjamin Straumann, eds. The Roman Foundations of the Law of Nations: Alberico Gentili and the Justice of Empire. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2010.

Kunkel, Wolfgang. An Introduction to Roman Legal and Constitutional History. 2nd ed. Translated by J. M. Kelly. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1973.

Levy, Ernst. “Natural Law in the Roman Period.” Natural Law Proceedings 2 (1949): 43-72.

Norr, Dieter. Aspekte des romischen Volkerrechts: Die Bronzetafel von Alcantara. Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1989.

Norr, Dieter. Die fides in romischen Volkerrecht. Heidelberg: Müller Juristischer Verlag, 1991.

Padovani, Andrea, and Peter G. Stein, eds. The Jurists' Philosophy of Law from Rome to the Seventeenth Century. Dordrecht, Berlin, Heidelberg, and Vienna: Springer, 2007.

Rabel, Ernst. “Private Law of Western Civilization I. The Significance of Roman Law.” Louisiana Law Review 10 (1949-50): 1-14.

Scevola, Roberto. Utilitas publica, 2 vols. Padua: CEDAM, 2012.

Schiavone, Aldo. The Invention of the Law in the West. Translated by Jeremy Carden and Anthony Shugaar. Cambridge, MA, and London: The Belknap Press of Har­vard University Press, 2012.

Schiller, Arthur. Roman Law: Mechanisms of Development. The Hague, Paris, and New York: Mounton Publishers, 1978.

Schulz, Fritz. History of Roman Legal Science. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1946.

Schulz, Fritz. Principles of Roman Law. Translated by Marguerite Wolff. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1936.

Stein, Peter. The Character and Influence of the Roman Civil Law: Historical Essays. London and Ronceverte: The Hambledon Press, 1988.

Straumann, Benjamin. Crisis and Constitutionalism: Roman Political Thought from the Fall of the Republic to the Age of Revolution. Oxford and New York: Oxford Uni­versity Press, 2016.

Vinogradoff, Paul. “Sources of Law: Right and Law.” The Collected Papers of Paul Vinogradoff, 465-478. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1923; reprint 1963.

Watson, Alan. International Law in Archaic Rome. Baltimore and London: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1993.

Watson, Alan. The Spirit of Roman Law. Athens, GA, and London: University of Georgia Press, 1995.

Wieacker, Franz. Romische Rechtgeschichte: Quellenkunde, Rechtsbildung, Jurisprudenz and Rechtsliteratur I. Munich: Beck Verlag, 1988.

Wolff, Hans Julius. Roman Law: An Historical Introduction. Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press, 1951.

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