The following is a historical outline of the development of Roman law, from its origins in the legendary era of Rome's seven kings (753-510 BC) until its final culmination in the legislation of Justinian in the sixth century A.D. In this period of over a 1,000 years, the Romans not only devised a system of law that spread over almost the whole of the known, civilized world,1 but created legal principles and procedures which are still followed today in nations and regions of which the Caesars never dreamed.
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, theoretical refinement, and a high degree of practical elasticity.2
Indeed, Roman law is the source from which the mainstream of law in the contemporary Western world derives, and its influence has been felt over a wider area still, as its tradition was spread to those non-Western societies where Western colonial powers established their own Roman-derived legal systems. Only the English-speaking nations have followed a distinctive legal tradition derived from ...