The history of Roman Law

The history of Roman Law
Andi Belegu
Prishtina, 2014

Contents
Introduction....................................................................................................... 3
The twelve tables (451-450 BC) ......................................................................... 4
Table I............................................................................................................ 5
Table II........................................................................................................... 5
Table III. ........................................................................................................ 5
Table IV. ........................................................................................................ 6
Table V. ......................................................................................................... 6
Table VI. ........................................................................................................ 6
Table VII........................................................................................................ 7
Table VIII....................................................................................................... 7
Table IX. ........................................................................................................ 8
Table X. ......................................................................................................... 8
Table XI. ........................................................................................................ 8
Table XII........................................................................................................ 8
The Justinian Code............................................................................................. 9
Twelve tables vs. Roman law ........................................................................... 11
Conclusion....................................................................................................... 12

Introduction
And this is how the story of Rome begins the story of the city of the twins, born of diversity sons
of Mars and mothered by a vestal virgin. A shepherd found the twins in the bushes near the Tiber
river. Suckled by a wolf one of the twins would be killed by his brother who would build the
most magnificent nation ever known. Romulas and Remus as the children were called, both
wanted to build a new city. Romulus would create a truly unique civilization that confounds
people even today. The city would become an empire to never be forgotten. Today, we still look
back, and we see the legendary nation of Rome.
It has impacted our very lives, and changed the way early society would operate. Today students
still all over the world still study Rome. American Students study Julius Caesar, English scholars
hypothesis the possibility of the legendary King Arthur, perhaps being a Roman; Italian students
study the twelve tablets of Roman law. The Romans, while not unique unto the land they lived,
are unique in the way they put together knowledge, and instituted into their system. Roman
government, Roman laws and pieces of Roman society can still be seen in today’s society.
And as the story of the twins continues. As they were deciding for the place where Rome should
be settled down. The twins soon came to a disagreement over the location of the new settlement
that would someday grow into one of the largest world powers ever. The twins as legend go
settle this by withdrawing to separate hills to await a symbol. This type of problem solving
would become a roman trademark. Rome's way of dealing with Law would become a foundation
for the world to look upon for the rest of eternity.
“It is often said that Roman Law is one of the pillars of European Civilization. And so, indeed, it
is. Latin Lex means the ‘bond’, ‘that which binds’. The same idea underlies that other keystone
of Roman Legality, the pactum or ‘contract’. Once freely agreed by two parties, whether for
commercial, matrimonial, or political purposes, the conditions of the contract bind the parties to

observe it. As the Romans knew, the rule of law ensures sound government, commercial
confidence, and orderly society…” (Davies 1996)
This essay tends to give information on the development history of the Roman law and the
Roman State in general. The thesis that this essay supports is that the Roman law and the roman
state had a great impact on the development of the further legal regulations, codes and
institutions all around Europe. The essay will be in a form of a timeline of the Roman History
focusing on the development of the Roman law tradition.
The twelve tables (451-450BC)
By the beginning of the Roman state law was also developed, the first act to establish the new
system of jurisdiction which would change the perception of law in the world establishing a
system of rules which in the future got known as the roman laws noting a unforgettable
civilization were the twelve tables by the years between 451 and 450 BC. These tables would lay
the path to a completely new function of life and state in Rome and not only, these tables
represent the first codification of laws which lately became the way of making the law.
Duodecim Tabularum was ratified by the Centuriate Assembly in 449 B.C., was engraved on
twelve tablets (whence the title), which were attached to the Rostra before the Curia in the
Forum of Rome.
The Twelve Tables were not a reform or a liberalizing of old custom. Rather, they recognized the
prerogatives of the patrician class and of the patriarchal family, the validity of enslavement for
unpaid debt, and the interference of religious custom in civil cases. That they reveal a remarkable
liberality for their time with respect to testamentary rights and contracts is probably the result not
of any innovations by the decemvirs but rather of the progress that had been made in commercial
customs in Rome in an era of prosperity and vigorous trade. (Britannica Encyclopedy n.d.)

Table I.1
1. If anyone summons a man before the magistrate, he must go. If the man summoned does not
go, let the one summoning him call the bystanders to witness and then take him by force.
2. If he shirks or runs away, let the summoner lay hands on him.
3. If illness or old age is the hindrance, let the summoner provide a team. He need not provide a
covered carriage with a pallet unless he chooses.
4. Let the protector of a landholder be a landholder; for one of the proletariat, let anyone that
cares, be protector.
6-9. When the litigants settle their case by compromise, let the magistrate announce it. If they do
not compromise, let them state each his own side of the case, in the comitium of the forum before
noon. Afterwards let them talk it out together, while both are present. After noon, in case either
party has failed to appear, let the magistrate pronounce judgment in favor of the one who is
present. If both are present the trial may last until sunset but no later.
Table II.2
2. He whose witness has failed to appear may summon him by loud calls before his house every
third day.
Table III.3
1. One who has confessed a debt, or against whom judgment has been pronounced, shall have
thirty days to pay it in. After that forcible seizure of his person is allowed. The creditor shall
bring him before the magistrate. Unless he pays the amount of the judgment or some one in the
presence of the magistrate interferes in his behalf as protector the creditor so shall take him home
and fasten him in stocks or fetters. He shall fasten him with not less than fifteen pounds of
weight or, if he choose, with more. If the prisoner choose, he may furnish his own food. If he
does not, the creditor must give him a pound of meal daily; if he choose he may give him more.
1 Oliver J. Thatcher, ed., The Library of Original Sources (Milwaukee: University Research Extension Co., 1901),
Vol. III: The Roman World, pp. 9-11.

2. On the third market day let them divide his body among them. If they cut more or less than
each one's share it shall be no crime.
3. Against a foreigner the right in property shall be valid forever.
Table IV.4
1. A dreadfully deformed child shall be quickly killed.
2. If a father sell his son three times, the son shall be free from his father.
3. As a man has provided in his will in regard to his money and the care of his property, so let it
be binding. If he has no heir and dies intestate, let the nearest agnate have the inheritance. If
there is no agnate, let the members of his gens have the inheritance.
4. If one is mad but has no guardian, the power over him and his money shall belong to his
agnates and the members of his gens.
5. A child born after ten months since the father's death will not be admitted into a legal
inheritance.
Table V.5
1. Females should remain in guardianship even when they have attained their majority.
Table VI.6
1. When one makes a bond and a conveyance of property, as he has made formal declaration so
let it be binding.
3. A beam that is built into a house or a vineyard trellis one may not take from its place.
5. Usucapio of movable things requires one year's possession for its completion; but usucapio of
an estate and buildings two years.

6. Any woman who does not wish to be subjected in this manner to the hand of her husband
should be absent three nights in succession every year, and so interrupt the usucapio of each
year.
Table VII.7
1. Let them keep the road in order. If they have not paved it, a man may drive his team where he
likes.
9. Should a tree on a neighbor's farm be bend crooked by the wind and lean over your farm, you
may take legal action for removal of that tree.
10. A man might gather up fruit that was falling down onto another man's farm.
Table VIII.8
2. If one has maimed a limb and does not compromise with the injured person, let there be
retaliation. If one has broken a bone of a freeman with his hand or with a cudgel, let him pay a
penalty of three hundred coins If he has broken the bone of a slave, let him have one hundred and
fifty coins. If one is guilty of insult, the penalty shall be twenty-five coins.
3. If one is slain while committing theft by night, he is rightly slain.
4. If a patron shall have devised any deceit against his client, let him be accursed.
5. If one shall permit himself to be summoned as a witness, or has been a weigher, if he does not
give his testimony, let him be noted as dishonest and incapable of acting again as witness.
10. Any person who destroys by burning any building or heap of corn deposited alongside a
house shall be bound, scourged, and put to death by burning at the stake provided that he has
committed the said misdeed with malice aforethought; but if he shall have committed it by
accident, that is, by negligence, it is ordained that he repair the damage or, if he be too poor to be
competent for such punishment, he shall receive a lighter punishment.
12. If the theft has been done by night, if the owner kills the thief, the thief shall be held to be
lawfully killed.

13. It is unlawful for a thief to be killed by day....unless he defends himself with a weapon; even
though he has come with a weapon, unless he shall use the weapon and fight back, you shall not
kill him. And even if he resists, first call out so that someone may hear and come up.
23. A person who had been found guilty of giving false witness shall be hurled down from the
Tarpeian Rock.
26. No person shall hold meetings by night in the city.
Table IX.9
4. The penalty shall be capital for a judge or arbiter legally appointed who has been found guilty
of receiving a bribe for giving a decision.
5. Treason: he who shall have roused up a public enemy or handed over a citizen to a public
enemy must suffer capital punishment.
6. Putting to death of any man, whosoever he might be unconvicted is forbidden.
Table X.10
1. None is to bury or burn a corpse in the city.
3. The women shall not tear their faces nor wail on account of the funeral.
5. If one obtains a crown himself, or if his chattel does so because of his honor and valor, if it is
placed on his head, or the head of his parents, it shall be no crime.
Table XI.11
1. Marriages should not take place between plebeians and patricians.
Table XII.12
2. If a slave shall have committed theft or done damage with his master’s knowledge, the action
for damages is in the slave's name.
5. Whatever the people had last ordained should be held as binding by law.

The Justinian Code
Corupus Iurus Civilis or the Justinian Code, was the result of Emperor Justinian's desire that
existing Roman law be collected into a simple and clear system of laws, or "code." Tribonian, a
legal minister under Justinian, lead a group of scholars in a 14-month effort to codify existing
Roman law. The result was the first Justinian Code, completed in 529. This code was later
expanded to include Justinian's own laws, as well as two additional books on areas of the law. In
534, the Justinian Code, made up of the Code, the Digest, and the Institutes, was completed.13
The King Justinian I ruled the Eastern Roman, or Byzantine, Empire from 527 until 565. He is
significant for his efforts to regain the lost provinces of the Western Roman Empire, his
Codification of Roman Law, and his architectural achievements.
“Justice is the constant and perpetual wish to render to every one his due." Justinian I
Justinian was born circa 482 in Pauresium, Illyricum (probably south of modern Nišs, Serbia).
Justinian came to the throne with the intention of re-establishing the Roman Empire as it had
been before the provinces of the Western Roman Empire fell under the control of various
Germanic tribes during the fifth century. To this end, he sent his armies against the Vandals in
North Africa (roughly, modern Algeria and Tunisia), the Visigoths in Spain, and the Ostrogoths
in Italy.
The Vandals surrendered in 534, but the Visigoths and Ostrogoths proved more difficult.
Justinian's forces never succeeded in capturing more than a small part of Spain and subdued Italy
only after a devastating war that ended in 563 with Italy in ruins. Nonetheless, when Justinian
died, he could claim with some justice that the Mediterranean Sea was once again a Roman lake.
13 Ancient Roman statutes :translation, with introduction, commentary, glossary, and index
by Allan Chester Johnson,Paul Robinson Coleman-Norton, Frank Card Bourne ; general editor, Clyde Pharr Austin
: University of Texas Press, 1961

Justinian's conquests proved ephemeral, however. Within four years of his death, northern Italy
had fallen to the Lombards, another Germanic tribe, and by the early eighth century, Muslim
armies had conquered North Africa and Spain.
Justinian's achievements in law were more long-lasting. Although several collections of imperial
Roman legislation had been compiled in the past, by Justinian's reign even the most recent, the
Theodosian Code (Codex Theodosianus), which had been issued in 438, was out-of-date.
Accordingly in 528 Justinian established a commission of ten experts, including Tribonian, to
prepare a new edition, which was completed in 534. The Code (Codex), as it was called, contains
4,562 laws from the reign of Hadrian (117–138) to 534.
Roman law, however, encompasses both legislation and Jurisprudence; that is, literature
interpreting the law. Despite the importance of jurisprudence, no single collection had ever been
made, and some important works were not readily available. Therefore in 530 Justinian ordered
his commission to collect the most important writings on jurisprudence and to edit and clarify the
texts whenever necessary. To complete their task, the commission had to read two thousand
books containing over three million lines, but nonetheless they finished the compilation known
as the Digest (Digestum), or Pandects (Pandectae), by December 533.
In the same year, the commissioners issued the Institutes (Institutiones), a handbook for law
students. Although Justinian had only planned a tripartite compilation of Roman law, imperial
legislation did not cease with the completion of the Code in 534. Therefore the edicts issued by
Justinian after 534 were collected and came to be known as the Novels (Novellae), or New Laws.
The Code, Digest, and Institutes had been written in Latin, the traditional language of Rome, but
Justinian issued the Novels in Greek in recognition of the fact that Greek was the ordinary
language of the Eastern Roman Empire.
Together the Code, Digest, Institutes, and Novels came to be known as the Corpus juris civilis
("the corpus of civil law"). The Corpus juris not only preserved Roman law for later generations
but, after the twelfth century when it came to be known and studied in western Europe, provided
inspiration for most European legal systems.
Justinian is also known for the extensive building program that he undertook both in the East and
in Italy. The church of Hagia Sophia in Constantinople, which was completed in 562, is

considered one of the finest examples of Byzantine architecture. Justinian died November 14,
565, in Constantinople, now Istanbul, Turkey.
Twelve tables vs. Roman law
Even though they derive from societies with same values which promote the morality and
lawfulness the twelve tables and the Corpus Iuris Civilis defer in some parts.
For marriage the twelve tables say; ”Marriages should not take place between plebeians and
patricians. (As time went on, this law was changed. When the tables were first written, this was
the law.)” While the Justinian Code says “Roman citizens are bound together in lawful
matrimony when they are united according to law, the males having attained the age of puberty,
and the females a marriageable age, whether they are fathers or sons of a family; but, of the
latter, they must first obtain the consent of their parents, in whose power they are. For both
natural reason and the law require this consent; so much so, indeed, that it ought to precede the
marriage. It is not every woman that can be taken as a wife: for marriage with certain classes or
persons is forbidden. “
The power of parents in the Twelve tables is defined as so; “If a child is born with a deformity he
shall be killed. If a father sells his son into slavery three times, the son shall be free of his
father”. While the Justinian code says; “Our children, begotten in lawful marriage, are in our
power. Marriage, or matrimony, is a binding together of a man and woman to live in an
indivisible union. The power which we have over our children is peculiar to the citizens of
Rome; for no other people have a power over their children, such as we have over ours. The
child born to you and your wife is in your power. And so is the child born to your son of his
wife, that is, your grandson or granddaughter; so are your great-grandchildren, and all your other
descendants. But a child born of your daughter is not in your power, but in the power of its own
father.”
For assault and battery the Roman law says “Those who have incanted an "evil song"...
(interpreted by Cicero as slander, in De republica, Book IV) If one has maimed another and does
not buy his peace, there be retaliation in kind. Someone who breaks another's bone by hand or

club must pay 300 sesterces; for a slave, 150; if he has done simple harm against another,
25.Someone who kills crops with a spell, or another's corn… If a patron defrauds his client, let
him be outlawed. If one has been called to witness, or hold the scales, unless he gives his
testimony, let him be dishonored and incapable of further testimony. If an object flies unarmed
from your hand rather than aimed [and causes injury], you will owe a ram.
While the Justinian Code says “An injury is defined as “anything which is done without just
cause. An injury in outrage is inflicted not only with striking of the fist, a stick or a whip, but
also by harsh and abusive language. Or by writing, publishing or speaking words that are
untrue.The amount of money awarded to a victim of an injury or an outrage rises and falls in
amount according to the class and character of the victim. For instance, is the victim holds a
government position and is outraged by a person of low social class, the victim is entitled to
greater compensation than in the injury was inflicted by another government official. A person
who has been outraged always has his option between the civil remedy (only involving a
financial penalty) and a criminal indictment (in which the accused could be sent to jail.) If he
prefers civil remedy, the penalty which is imposed depends on the victim’s own estimate of the
wrong he has suffered; if he prefers a criminal trial it is the the judge’s duty to inflict the harshest
possible punishment on the offender.”
Conclusion
Today, Roman law is no longer applied in legal practice, even though the legal systems of some
states like South Africa and San Marino are still based on the old Ius Commune. However, even
where the legal practice is based on a code, many rules deriving from Roman law apply: No code
completely broke with the Roman tradition. Rather, the provisions of Roman law were fitted into
a more coherent system and expressed in the national language. For this reason, knowledge of
Roman law is indispensable to understand the legal systems of today. Thus, Roman law is often
still a mandatory subject for law students in civil law jurisdictions.
As steps towards a unification of the private law in the member states of the European Union are
being taken, the old Ius Commune, which was the common basis of legal practice everywhere,
but allowed for many local variants, is seen by many as a model.

In Conclusion the Romans had a very uncomplicated legal system and since everything was so
easy to comprehend if you broke one of their laws sixty percent of the time you were sentenced
to death with out thinking but other times you were just banished. Our laws came straight from
out of Rome because the law system worked very well for them. Only certain aspects of their
laws were not adopted by us because they were thought to be too cruel. But, what could you say
except for “when your in the Romans house do as they do” or you could get capital punishment
for doing what you thing is right.

The history of Roman Law

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