B LITERARY TEXTS

32 A significant supplement to strictly legal source material is afforded by references to legal situations in the various literary works of Latin and Greek authors. These references are valuable for additions to our knowledge of the Roman law in the archaic and pre-classical epoch as well as during the classical and post-classical eras.

Regarding the former, a caveat must be entered. Can we accept as fact what is written about the kingdom and earlyrepublic ^[214] ^{^[215] ^[216] ^[217] by authors of the late republic and empire? The whole q uestion of the credibility of the sources, particularly of the literary writings, has long been discussed.¹ The traditional account of early Roman history was fashioned before the time of Titus Livius (59 B.C.-17 A.D.) and Dionysius Halicarnassensis (taught at Rome from 30 B.C.), the two writers who present the fullest details of the early history of Rome. These authors repeat the traditional account, which seems to have been generally accepted by the Romans without question. As a matter of fact, the traditional account depends for a good portion on oral tradition and a few public records still extant in late republican times. Though the events related have an historical flavor, there are few happenings which can be definitely authenticated. The conclusion of modern scholars is that, to a considerable extent, the history of early Rome is part invention, part reflection of foreign history, actual or fictional, and part anticipation of later events.¹ Some events, however, such as the enactment of the Twelve Tables (see infra, chap. V, | 53) seem to be historically credible. With Marcus Porcius Cato and the ‘annalists’ in the middle of the 2nd century B.C. the historiography of Rome is on a sound basis.’ The writings of the rhetoricians, particularly the legal practitioners, provide perhaps the most significant additions to our study of the Roman law.^[218] ^{^[219]} The works of Marcus Tullius Cicero (106-43 B.C.) are, of course, preeminent.
Not only in his orations, many of which are fonts of legal lore of the most fascinating nature, but also in his rhetorical and philosophical writings, and in his letters, we find innumerable references to all facets of the la[220] [221] w.^[222] There have been many volumes devoted specifically to the allusions by Cicero to Roman law, best known that of Costa.^[223] The writings of the other authors on rhetoric, such as the anonymous author of the Rhetoric to Herennius (c. 86-82 B.C.), Quintilian (bom c. 30 A.D.), are valuable in this respect.^[224] Next in line, in terms of significance of supplementing our knowledge of the law, are the works of grammarians, lexicographers, antiquarians, and the like, which have come down to us. The books on the Latin language by Terentius Varro (116-27 B.C.) and the lexicography of Sextus Pompeius Festus (late 2nd century A.D.), which epitomizes a similar work by Verrius Flaccus (period of Augustus), are extremely valuable for information on legal institutions of archaic and early republican Rome.* Selections from the‘Attic Nights’ of Aulus Gellius (c. 130-c. 180 A.D.) - the materia] began to be collected, the author tells us, during winter nights in Attica - are among the most numerous non-legal sources in this volume, a variety of anecdotes or brief accounts which touch upon legal life in Rome.’
In the historians, particularly those who wrote biographies of the emperors - Tacitus (born c. 56 A.D.), Suetonius (born c. 69 A.D.), Dio Cassius (praetor in 194 A.D.), and the authors of the questionable Augustan histories - passages can be found which are useful in extending our knowledge of the Roman public law, with occasional sidelights into the private law.
Semi-legal in nature is the correspondence between Pliny the Younger and the emperor Trajan, constituting the Xth book of Pliny’s letters, a significant source of material on imperial enactments.^[225] ^{^[226] ^[227] ^[228] Reference could be made to a host of other ancient writers, including dramatists (Plautus and Terence)^{1 1} and poets (Horace, Juvenal, Virgil), as well as the commentators and scholiasts'^[229] on earlier works, but it must suffice to refer to modern literature for further treatment. Bruns has collected passages of legal content from various authors,^[230] ^{^[231] ^[232] while there are several good discussions of Roman law in the literary sources generally.'* Berger has provided a bibliography of Roman law in non-juristic sources. '*}}}

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Source: Schiller A.A.. Roman Law: Mechanisms of Development. Mouton Publishers,1978. — 606 p.. 1978

B LITERARY TEXTS

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