Julius Paulus

An original lawyer of high reputation, a popular legal teacher, and a prolific writer, Julius Paulus (known also as Paul) held the highest imperial offices. A pupil of Cervidius Scaevola, Paul was assessor to Papinian as praetorian prefect under Septimius Severus, and a member of his emperor’s council at the same time as Papinian.

Over eighty-five works in more than three hundred books may be credited to him. His most important works are probably his large commentary on the praetorian edict in seventy-eight books and his commentary on Sabinus in sixteen books. He was also the author of twenty-five books of quaestiones and twenty-three books of responsa, both following the order of the digest system. The famous Pauli Sententiae, published at the end of the third century and endorsed by Emperor Constantine as genuine, is a spurious work that uses the name of Paul to enhance its reputation and value. More than two thousand fragments of Paul’s voluminous works survived in Justinian’s Digest, some 17 percent of the whole Digest. After the promulgation of the Antonine Constitution, and influenced by Stoic philosophy, Paul contributed, along with Ulpian, to accommodating the Roman legal system to the new demands of a cosmopolitan society. Paul survived his contemporary Ulpian.