PREFACE

del 8« τον αγαθόν κριτήν ούκ εκ των παραλειπομένων δοκιμάζειν τούς γράφοντας, άλλ’ εκ των λεγομένων.

This book was begun as the article on Roman legal science in a comprehensive work—The Oxford History of Legal Science—which was to have been published by the Clarendon Press, under the editorship of Professors Hermann Kantorowicz and Francis de Zulueta. The outbreak of war, Kantorowicz’s premature death, and the long continuance of the war unhappily made it necessary to abandon the larger plan. Only Professor George Μ. Calhoun’s contribution has been published, posthumously, by Professor de Zulueta, as a separate work under the title of Introduction to Greek Legal Science (1944). The present work has been written after the abandonment of the original plan, and therefore without the limitations necessarily imposed on a contribution to a co-operative work. Though it is only in the light of the history of legal science as a whole that the world-wide importance of Roman legal science can be seen, the present work calls for no justification. There exists at present no work devoted to the history of Roman legal science specifically, no work which treats of it in full and with adequate regard to the present state of its study. Paul Krüger’s standard work, Geschichte der Quellen und Literatur des romischen Rechts, deals, as its title indicates, with the subject only in so far as it is involved in a history of the sources and literature.

The present work is intended neither as an educational manual nor as a work of reference, but as a book to read. In it I have endeavoured to present the conception of Roman legal science and its growth which I have acquired by forty years of study of the sources, but I have been at pains not only to present that conception in readable form, but also to justify it and to invite criticism and further research by giving references to the sources and literature. I have not aimed at completeness, but have in general limited myself.to the dominant characteristics of the various periods. Greater completeness has indeed been imposed on me in the literary chapter of Part III owing to the unsatisfactory state of our studies, but in general more detailed treatment would have rendered several volumes necessary. In my references, too, I have not aimed at being complete. I have cited what I have myself read and found profitable—in fact the literary basis of my work, which it is needful for the reader to know and to bear in mind. Anything that appeared to me either entirely erroneous or irrele­vant, or antiquated and not even of historical interest, has been simply passed over. The legal text-books are mentioned at the beginning, but are not cited continuously: a reader who wishes to refer to them can do so easily enough with the help of their indexes. In principle I have not cited critical reviews: to have done so would have overloaded the footnotes; they can easily be discovered. Where sources and literature have already been collected in some easily accessible work I have been content to refer to that. Thus, because I do not mention a work, the reader must not infer that I am unacquainted with it. Important works of the last ioo years are not likely to have escaped me. On the other hand many a valuable monograph or observation has doubt­less been left unjustifiably unmentioned, but 'omnium habere memoriam et penitus in nullo peccare divinitatis magis quam mortalitatis est’.

I have written not only, and not in the first place, for the narrow circle of specialist scholars in Roman law, but with the hope of being read by advanced law-students and of assisting them in their study of the sources. I have written no less for students of classical philology and ancient history. Roman legal science is the purest and most original expression of the Roman genius; he who would pay homage to that genius cannot content himself with a distant bow to Roman legal science.

In conclusion I offer my thanks to all who have helped me in my work—they are so numerous that I cannot name them all—in the first place to Professor de Zulueta, who entrusted me with the article on Roman legal science in the original work, who has performed the laborious work of translation, and has assisted in the correction of the proofs. My warmest thanks are due to Balliol College, to the Society for the Protection of Science and Learning, and to the Clarendon Press: in particular to Mr. Kenneth Sisam for his generous and understanding support. From the bottom of my heart I thank the Dutch Universities that came to my aid in a critical and almost desperate position. I owe a special debt to Mr. W. B. A. H. Heskes, Advocaat en Procureur in Leyden, and to his wife: they gave me refuge in their house, and it was there that work on this book was begun.

During the whole of the war the Oxford libraries have put their treasures at my disposal with unexampled generosity—the Bod­leian Library, Haverfield and Codrington Libraries, the libraries of Christ Church and Jesus College, and the Taylor Institution. I thank them all, and most particularly the Bodleian, which in spite of its diminished staff has throughout ministered to my insatiable appetite for books with unf ailing patience, kindness, and exactitude.

Lastly I have to thank my wife, to whom I dedicate this book. I do that with Roman brevity in the words of the Laudaiio Turiae:

Repentinis nuntiis ad praesentia et imminentia vitanda excitatus tuis consiliis conservatus sum.

F. S. OXFORD 1946