Cambridge Ancient Hi.. - Index of

CHAPTER 9
ROMAN LAW
detlef liebs
i. introduction: law in the late roman empire
Law was central to the social structure of the Roman empire in the fifth
and sixth centuries a.d., more so than in the principate and in the neighbouring
barbarian kingdoms. The administration of justice, and of finance,
had been strengthened by the reduction in the size of provinces and by the
reforms which both relieved governors of military responsibilities and provided
them with a substructure of bureaucratic support. The legislative
machine had also become more energetic. The legislative functions of the
senate in Rome had been transferred to the imperial consistorium in
Constantinople and Ravenna, which worked with more expedition and
produced incomparably more enactments. The number was especially high
at the beginning and towards the end of our period – that is, a.d. 425–60
and, even more so, 527–46. Tradition had by this time built up a vast store
of legal literature, impressive alike in its volume, antiquity and quality. A
civilized state, based on the rule of law, seemed on the surface of things to
be assured, and this must have enhanced Roman pride. With the exception
of the Vandals, one nation of Germanic barbarians after another sought
to emulate this Roman ideal (see pp. 260–87 below).
However, the aspiration was also a burden which was difficult even for
the Roman state to sustain. The sources of law were remote from the ordinary
inhabitants of the empire, since the personal contacts entailed by legal
practice in the first centuries a.d. had now been displaced by bureaucratic
structures. The jurists who used to give responsa and who, with the
emperor’s endorsement, made the development of law their personal
responsibility had given way to career professionals with a technical
command of a huge but ever more unwieldy body of enacted law, as well
as other texts. Further, the social position of the numerous lawyers of late
antiquity was now such that they seldom reached the top positions in the
state. For financial reward, 1 they had for the most part to content themselves
with more modest posts than the few who preceded them in the
years before a.d. 212. The central bureaucracy was inclined to extend its
1 Chastagnol (1979) 230f.
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