Roman Law and the Legal World of the Romans (review)

A.M. Riggsby has produced a highly readable introduction "to the basics of the legal world of the Romans" (5). Not only is it about the legal system, its principles, and formal procedures, but it also contextualizes law in its broader political, social, and cultural contexts. Given the constraints of the available space as well as of the intended readership (if this is to be identified as general readers, high school students, and undergraduates of Classics, History, or Law), the book is admirably successful.

Quite confusing, however, is the publisher's claim that the text "will also serve as a useful reference for more advanced students and scholars." It is difficult to see how a non-referenced book that ends with a (briefly commented) reading list of 20 English titles (275-277) and an all too short and lacunose index¹ (281-283) could achieve such an aim. This is not to say that scholars may not profit from reading this book. It may indeed be very helpful for those who look for some inspiration for their teaching, or for specialists of the neighbouring disciplines who would like to refresh their memory not of any particular detail, but rather of a more general picture of Roman legal matters.

Yet another pronouncement from the publisher is disturbing: "The text is also free of technical language and Latin terminology." I breathed a sigh of relief that the market strategist who wrote this had not read Riggsby's work. For this in fact contains a few hundred technical terms, and most of them either in their original or in Anglicized Latin. The author's strength as a scholar, stylist, and class-room teacher is exactly revealed by his judicious choice of the technical terms,² and by their plain and competent explanations. In a condensed form, examples can be found in the glossary, which contains items as general as "Consul" and "Jurist" and as special as "Restitutio in integrum" (265-273). That names such as Salvius Iulianus, Papinian, Ulpian, Diocletian, or Theodosius are missing in the text results from a somewhat excessive economy of the book. Its text concentrates on late Republican (pre-classical) and classical law until ca. AD 235, though occasionally previous or later developments are mentioned in passing as well. So at the one end, the Twelve Tables or the introduction of the peregrine praetor are briefly considered, at the other, a one-page summary of the effect of Christianity on Roman family law is offered (184-185).

Two jokes on the clichés of advocates' greed or tendency to obfuscate matters set the tone of this easy-to-read book (1). Introduction (Chapter 1) and Conclusion (Chapter 22) intriguingly reflect on ancients' and moderns' attitudes towards law and trials. "Roman History—The Brief Version" not only succinctly outlines the major political institutions and their development, but also offers a concise chronology of the development of the legal discipline—both very important for a work otherwise organized dogmatically rather than chronologically. Chapter 3 roughly outlines the sources of Roman law. How the balance between instruction at a very basic level, precision, and economy is struck may be understood from the following example: "Roman statute law during the Republic came from votes of the popular assemblies. The resulting laws were called generally leges (sing, lex); this is where our word "legal" comes from. (You may occasionally also see the term plebis scita [sing, plebis scitum], but the difference is only procedural; it does not affect the force of the law.) Unlike the American system, though more like the British, there was no separate Constitution or other kind of special super-law." (26).

Chapter 4 dwells on the sources for Roman law by looking at the writing materials as well as fundamental works such as the Institutiones of Gaius, the Corpus Iuris Civilis commissioned by Justinian, and compilations by Varro or Gellius. Chapters 5 and 6 look...