What were ancient Rome's laws?

Answer 1

Table I. 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. He whose witness has failed to appear may summon him by loud calls before his house every third day. Table III. 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. 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. 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. 1. Females should remain in guardianship even when they have attained their majority. Table VI. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 1. Marriages should not take place between plebeians and patricians. Table XII. 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.

Answer 2

The laws of the Roman Republic evolved continually the continuous promulgation of laws passed by the vote of the popular assemblies and through the work of the praetors who were like chiefs justices.

The praetors were not professional layers or judges. They were politicians elected to the office. One of the praetores urbanus (urban praetors) presided over civil cases between Roman citizens and the administration of justice. Another one had the job of presiding over criminal proceedings (quaestiones perpetuae) and appointed jurors to vote for guilt or innocence. The praetor peregrinus, which roughly means chief justice for foreigners, presided over civil cases between Roman citizens and non-Romans.

In was civil cases, the praetors could appoint a iudex (judge) and hand over a case to him. A judex was not a professional judge. He was an unpaid private person chosen from the list (album) drawn up according to wealth to decide a case referred to him by the praetor. If the case was heard by a panel of iudices (plural of judex), they were known as recuperatores. Proceedings held before the praetor in iure where the issues were framed for decision. The matter then went to the iudex for trial (apud iudicem). The ruling (iudicium) of the iudex was binding. The Praetors established a formula directing the iudex regarding the remedy to be ordered to the defendant if the ruling was against him. During the course of the period of rule by emperors, this two-stage process had largely disappeared. The praetor heard the whole case in person or appointed a delegate (a iudex pedaneus). The formula was replaced by an informal system of pleadings.

The praetors also issued the Praetor's Edict, which stated the praetors' policy on judicial matters for their term of office. Praetors endorsed much of the content of previous edicts, thus ensuring continuity. Although praetors were not legislators and could not introduce new laws, they could make amendments. These introduced needed innovations. Therefore, the development an improvement of Roman law owed a lot to the praetors. Since the praetors were politicians, not lawyers, they often submitted consulta (written questions) to jurists (legal experts) and their replies were often used for the compilation of the edicts.

Roman law during the republic was based on mos maiorum, the customs of the ancestors.

Answer 3

The Romans developed a large amount of laws over more than 1,000 years.

The earliest Roman code of laws was the Law of the Twelve Tables (or Tablets) of 450 BC. The Romans then did not try to produce a codification which compiled all the Roman laws until the 6th century AD. Prior to this there had been partial codifications. The Gregorian Code (Codex Gregorianus) was a compendium of edicts of emperors for over a century and a half, from the 130s and 290s. The date of its compilation is unknown and is believed to be 291-4. The Hermogenian Code (Codex Hermogenianus) collected the edicts of the emperors of the first tetrarchy (Diocletian, Maximian Augusti, and Constantius and Galerius Caesars) mostly from the years 293-94. Both codes were named after their compilers and were probably commissioned by the emperor Diocletian. The co-emperors Theodosius II and Valentinian II commissioned a codification of all laws issued by the Christian emperors. This was the Theodosian Code (Codex Theodosianus) which started from the edicts of Constantine the Great (sole emperor 324-337) and the compilation was published in 438.

The first truly comprehensive compendium of Roman laws came as part of the Corpus Juris Civilis (Body of Civil Law), which was also dubbed the Justinian Code in the 16th century. It was commissioned by the emperor Justinian I (or the Great, reigned 527-565). A first edition was published in 529 and a second one in 534. It came in four parts:

1) The Codex (book)) or Codex Justinianus, which was a review of imperial laws going back 400 years (to the time of Hadrian). It scrapped obsolete or unnecessary laws, made changes when necessary and clarified obscure passages. Its aim was to put the laws in a single book (previously they were written on many different scrolls), harmonise conflicting view among jurists which arose from centuries of poorly organised development of Roman law and have a coherent body of law. It consists of 12 books, 1 book covers ecclesiastical law, the duties of high officers and sources of law, 7 cover private law, 1 criminal law and 3 administrative laws.

2) The Digesta which was a collection of fragments taken from essays on laws written by jurists (mostly from the 2nd and 3rd centuries) and which expressed the private opinions of legal experts. Most were from Ulpian (40%) and Paulus (17%). It was a large amount of writing which was condensed in 50 books. It was used as an advanced law student textbook.

3) The Institutiones was a textbook for first year law students written by two professors. It was a series of extracts from statements on the basic institutions of Roman law from the teaching books by 'writers of authority.' In was largely based on the texts of Gaius, a jurist of the 2nd century AD.

4) The Novellae Constitutiones, which contained laws recently issued by Justinian.