Development of Roman Law

The two greatest achievements of Roman civilization were the unification of the Mediterranean world and its neighboring regions for several centuries in the Roman Empire, and the development of the Roman tradition of law. In most features of civilization--literature, art and architecture, even their religious mythology--the Romans appear to us as mere imitators of the Greeks. In the realm of public life and affairs, Greek political and social thought appears to us as deeper than its Roman counterpart. But in the development of a workable system of law that combined consistency and coherence with practical applicability, the Romans jurisconsults as far exceeded Greek achievements as the solidity of the Roman empire exceeded the ephemeral empire of Alexander the Great. It has been written of Roman legal thinkers that they created

. . . that great, scientific treatment of the law that enabled Roman law, in a manner unique in ancient times, to combine consistency, theo

. . .
ple," i.e., the government, existed only for treason and violations of a few religious taboos. It was up to the victims of crimes to bring legal actions against the perpetrators. Today, this type of redress, while legally possible in our system, is seldom followed in criminal matters, but a similar system is followed for injuries that are not primarily criminal in character; e.g., if we are hit by a car, we sue the driver in civil court. The earlier Romans simply applied the same principle to criminal offenses. The protections of the ius civile applied only to Roman citizens. As the city grew in importance, however, it had an increasing number of foreign visitors or residents, to whom some sort of legal protection had to be afforded. This protection was made the responsibility of an official, the praetor. Over time, successive praetors' rulings came to constitute a separate body of law, ius honorarium, which was more flexible than the ius civile, tied as the latter was to traditions going back to the Twelve Tables and beyond.12 It is worth noting that in general the powers of Roman magistrates was much greater than that of modern executive officials; within the range of their function they were limited only by intercessi
. . .

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Approximate Word count = 2951
Approximate Pages = 12 (250 words per page)

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