Jurists of the early Principate

The jurists from the reign of Augustus up to the reign of Hadrian were divided into two opposing groups (scholae or sectae): the Proculians, founded by Antistius Labeo (see section below), and the Sabinians, founded by Ateius Capito.

The Proculians took their name from Proculus, Labeo’s successor at the head of the school. A powerful man of senatorial rank, perhaps from Spain, Proculus emphasized legal consistency. The Sabinians took their name from Masurius Sabinus, who headed the group after Capito’s death in 22. Later Sabinians were known as Cassians, after Sabinus’s student Gaius Cassius Longinus (consul in 30).

We possess no information about the teaching methods and the organiza­tion of these groups. We know that many jurists belonged to one or the other, and we know the names of many of their leaders. Distinguished Sabinians after Masurius Sabinus and Cassius were Caelius Sabinus, Javolenus Priscus, Gaius, and Julian. Among the Proculians, after Labeo and Proculus, stand Nerva pater, Nerva filius, Pegasus, Celsus pater, Celsus the Younger, and Neratius Priscus.

Several sources, including Gaius, reported more than twenty disputes between the schools, based probably on disputes between individual jurists. The differences and rivalries between the two schools were both doctrinal and personal. Proculians, for instance, argued that puberty, and therefore legal capacity, occurred when a child reached the age of fourteen. The Sabinians, however, argued that the age of puberty varied from person to person and thus demanded case-by-case evaluation (Gaius 1.196). The Proculians held that the addition or removal of a guarantor did not affect obligations or justify novation. The Sabinians, in contrast, argued that obligations with a guarantor differed from those without one, and therefore the addition or removal of a guarantor implied novation (Gaius 3.177-78).