Illustrated History of the Roman Empire Extensive information. A list of the consuls. The Roman Empire A history of Rome. Forum Romanum A helpful starting point for anyone interested in the civilization of ancient Rome. By David Camden. Resources for Augustan Studies Links to sites on Octavian. Google Directory: History of Ancient Rome. Yahoo Directory: History of Ancient Rome. Roman Law: The Twelve Tables. Avalon Project: The Twelve Tables. Thatcher, ed.
Book I: Status or Unequal Rights. Book II: Equal Rights. Book III: Intestacy. Book IV: Procedure. The Orations of Marcus Tullius Cicero. As law became more complex, Roman rulers found themselves in need of a larger group of legal authorities to give order to the system of legal formulas and decisions.
By the second half of the third century BCE, a new professional group of specialists trained in law, the jurists, emerged to meet this demand. The jurists did not participate in administering the law, but rather focused on interpreting and generating formal opinions on the law. It was the work and scholarly writings of generations of great jurists that elevated Roman law to its apex during the first two and a half centuries CE, which is referred to as the classical period of Roman law.
When researching the development of Roman Law, emphasis is placed on the works of the jurists Gaius, Ulpian, and Paulus as these texts survived independently of Justinian's compilations. The ideas expressed in these works can therefore be clearly recognized as predating Justinian's rule. Research Jurists. The Western Empire had collapsed fifty years before Justinian came to power, but during his reign, the emperor waged a successful campaign to reconquer some of the Western territories that had been lost to Germanic invaders, such as Italy and parts of Spain.
Like other Roman emperors before him, Justinian faced the challenge of maintaining control and creating a sense of unity within the Empire. One of the ways that Justinian sought this unity was through law. Roman citizenship had been extended to the empire outside of Italy in the third century CE, making inhabitants "citizens of Rome" and subject to its civil law. Justinian formed a commission of jurists to compile all existing Roman law into one body, which would serve to convey the historical tradition, culture, and language of Roman law throughout the empire.
This compilation, known collectively as the Corpus Juris Civilis, consisted of three different original parts: the Digest Digesta , the Code Codex , and the Institutes Institutiones.
The Digest CE collected and summarized all of the classical jurists' writings on law and justice. The Code CE outlined the actual laws of the empire, citing imperial constitutions, legislation and pronouncements.
The Institutes CE were a smaller work that summarized the Digest, intended as a textbook for students of law. A fourth work, the Novella Novellae was not a part of Justinian's original project, but was created separately by legal scholars in CE to update the Code with new laws created after CE and summarize Justinian's own constitution.
Nor could children marry without the father's consent. Just because a father held the power of a dictator did not always require that he act like one. In practice, many fathers gladly gave up their rights over their adult children. When a daughter married, she usually left her father's control and came under the power of her husband. Fathers also legally emancipated or freed their sons to become independent. Under patria potestas , the Roman father acted as a judge to settle legal matters within the family.
When a conflict occurred between families, the fathers of each would negotiate a settlement. After the Romans established a republic in B. At first, only the upper-class patricians made the laws. But before long, the lower-class plebeians gained this right. About 60 years after the founding of the Roman Republic, discontented plebeians demanded a written code of laws and legal rights.
The plebeians complained that because the laws were not in writing, government authorities and creditors could easily abuse the people. After some resistance from the patricians, a committee produced 12 bronze tablets that together contained Rome's first law code.
Called the Twelve Tables , this code recorded important legal concepts such as:. Around B. It largely replaced the role of families and fathers in the legal system. Under the new system, the praetor, a powerful government official, took written complaints from citizens and investigated them. The praetor decided whether to authorize a trial before a judge. The plaintiff, the one bringing the complaint, and the defendant then presented their evidence to the judge.
Finally, the praetor decided the case and, if the plaintiff won, ordered a remedy or compensation of some type. The praetor system handled criminal offenses in the same way. Appointed to one-year terms, the praetors became increasingly powerful judicial officials. They began the practice of issuing a written statement, called the Praetor's Edict, as their term of office began. This edict described the rights the praetor intended to enforce and what remedies he would recommend for wrongful acts.
Eventually, the edict became a standard set of legal principles and rules passed from one praetor to another. Praetors used their edicts to interpret the Twelve Tables, as well as the laws passed by the assemblies of the Republic.
Family law in the Roman Republic set the minimum age for marriage at 14 for males and 12 for females. No formal ceremony, religious or otherwise, was necessary. The fathers of both families, however, still had to give consent.
The male-dominated system also required the wife to bring a dowry usually some kind of property to her husband, who then controlled it. But either spouse could divorce the other without having to go through any legal formalities. Slavery was common in ancient Rome. One became a slave by being captured in war, born to a slave mother, or convicted for certain offenses. Masters had near absolute power over their slaves during the republic, including the right to kill them. Masters could also free their slaves.
When this happened, the slave automatically became a Roman citizen. Throughout most of the long history of the Roman Republic, the law treated criminal offenses as "civil wrongs" that were handled in lawsuits between the victim and the accused offender. For example, the Praetor's Edict declared that if a judge found a person guilty of certain kinds of stealing, he had to pay his victim four times the value of the stolen goods. Judges decided the compensation due a victim for personal injuries, usually a sum of money.
Around 80 B.
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