History of Human Society

by Frank W. Blackmar

The Development of Law Is the Most Remarkable Phase of the Roman Civilization.—Perhaps the most lasting effect of the Roman civilization is observed in the contribution of law to the nations which arose at the time of the decline of the imperial sway. From the time of the posting of the Twelve Tables in a public place, where they could be read by all the citizens of Rome, there was a steady growth of the Roman law. The decrees of the senate, as well as the influence of judicial decisions, gradually developed a system of jurisprudence. There sprang up, also, interpreters of the law, who had much influence in shaping its course. Also, in the early period of the republic, the acts of the popular assemblies became laws. This was before the senate became the supreme lawmaking body of the state.

During the imperial period the emperor acted somewhat through the senate, but the latter body was more or less under his control, for he frequently dictated its actions. Having assumed the powers of a magistrate, he could issue an edict; as a judge he could give decrees and issue commands to his own officials, all of which tended to increase the body of Roman law. In the selection of jurists for the interpretation of the law the emperor also had great control over its character. The great accomplishment of the lawmaking methods of the Romans was, in the first place, to allow laws to be made by popular assemblies and the senate, according to the needs of a developing social organization. This having once been established, the foundation of lawmaking was laid for all nations to follow. The Roman law soon passed into a complex system of jurisprudence which has formed a large element in the structure, principles, and practice of all modern legal systems. The character of the law in itself was superior and masterly, and its universality was accomplished through the universal rule of the empire.

The later emperors performed a great service to the world by collecting and codifying Roman laws. The Theodosian code (Theodosius II, 408-450 A.D.) was a very important one on account of the influence it exercised over the various Teutonic systems of law practised by the different barbarian tribes that came within the borders of the Roman Empire. The jurists who gave the law a great development had by the close of the fourth century placed on record all the principal legal acts of the empire. They had collected and edited all the sources of law and made extensive commentaries of great importance upon them, but it remained for Theodosius to arrange the digests of these jurists and to codify the later imperial decrees. But the Theodosian code went but a little way in the process of digesting the laws.

The Justinian code, however, gave a complete codification of the law in four distinct parts, known as (1) "the Pandects, or digest of the scientific law literature; (2) the Codex, or summary of imperial legislation; (3) the Institutes, a general review or text-book, founded upon the digest and code, an introductory restatement of the law; and (4) the Novels, or new imperial legislation issued after the codification, to fill the gaps and cure the inconsistencies discovered in the course of the work of codification and manifest in its published results."[[1]] Thus the whole body of the civil law was incorporated.

Here, then, is seen the progress of the Roman law from the semireligious rules governing the patricians in the early patriarchal period, whose practice was generally a form of arbitration, to the formal writing of the Twelve Tables, the development of the great body of the law through interpretation, the decrees of magistrates, acts of legislative assemblies, and finally the codification of the laws under the later emperors. This accumulation of legal enactments and precedents formed the basis of legislation under the declining empire and in the new nationalities. It also occupied an important place in the curriculum of the university.

Influence of the Greek Life on Rome.—The principal influence of the Greeks on Roman civilization was found first in the early religion and its development in the Latin race at Rome. The religion of the Romans was polytheistic, but far different from that of the Greeks. The deification of nature was not so analytic, and their deities were not so human as those of the Greek religion. There was no poetry in the Roman religion; it all had a practical tendency. Their gods were for use, and, while they were honored and worshipped, they were clothed with few fancies. The Romans seldom speculated on the origin of the gods and very little as to their personal character, and failed to develop an independent theogony. They were behind the Greeks in their mental effort in this respect, and hence we find all the early religion was influenced by the ideas of the Latins, the Etruscans, and the Greeks, the last largely through the colonies which were established in Italy. Archaeology points conclusively to the fact of early Greek influence.

In later development the conquest of the Greeks brought to Rome the religion, art, paintings, and philosophy of the conquered. The Romans were shrewd and acute in the appreciation of all which they had found that was good in the Greeks. From the time of this contact there was a constant and continued adoption of Grecian models in Rome. The first Roman writers, Fabius Pictor and Quintus Ennius, both wrote in Greek. All the early Roman writers considered Greek the finished style. The influence of the Greek language was felt at Rome on the first acquaintance of the Italians with it, through trade and commerce and through the introduction of Greek forms of religion.

The early influence of language was less than the influence of art. While the Phoenicians and Etruscans furnished some of the models, they were usually unproductive and barren types, and not to be compared with those furnished by Greece. The young Romans who devoted themselves to the state and its service were from the fifth century B.C. well versed in the Greek language. No education was considered complete in the latter days of the republic, and under the imperial power, until it had been finished at Athens or Alexandria. The effect on literature, particularly poetry and the drama, was great in the first period of Roman literature, and even Horace, the most original of all Latin poets, began his career by writing Greek verse, and no doubt his beautiful style was acquired by his ardent study of the Greek language. The plays of Plautus and Terence deal also with the products of Athens, and, indeed, every Roman comedy was to a certain extent a copy, either in form or spirit, of the Greek. In tragedy, the spirit of Euripides, the master, came into Rome.

The influence of the Greek philosophy was more marked than that of language. Its first contact with Rome was antagonistic. The philosophers and rhetoricians, because of the disturbance they created, were expelled from Rome in the second century. As early as 161 A.D. those who pursued the study of philosophy always read and disputed in Greek. Many Greek schools of philosophy of an elementary nature were established temporarily at Rome, while the large number of students of philosophy went to Athens, and those of rhetoric to Rhodes, for the completion of their education. The philosophy of Greece that came into Rome was something of a degenerate Epicureanism, fragments of a broken-down system, which created an unwholesome atmosphere.

The only science which Rome developed was that of jurisprudence, and the scientific writings of the Greeks had comparatively little influence upon Roman culture. Mr. Duruy, in speaking of the influence of the Greeks on Rome, particularly in the days of its decline, says: "In conclusion, we find in certain sciences, for which Rome cared nothing, great splendor, but in art and poetry no mighty inspiration; in eloquence, vain chatter of words and images (the rhetoricians), habits but no faith; in philosophy, the materialism which came from the school of Aristotle, the doubt born of Plato, the atheism of Theodorus, the sensualism of Epicurus vainly combated by the moral protests of Zeno; and lastly, in the public life, the enfeeblement or the total loss of all of those virtues which make the man and the citizen; such were the Greeks at the time. And now we say, with Cato, Polybius, Livy, Pliny, Justinian, and Plutarch, that all this passed into the Eternal City. The conquest of Greece by Rome was followed by the conquest of Rome by Greece. Graecia capta ferum victorem cepit."