sition; the character of Justinian has been exposed, to the blind vehemence of flattery and invective; and the injustice of a sect (the Anti-Tribonians) has refused all praise and merit to the prince, his ministers, and his laws.[1] Attached to no party, interested only for the truth and candour of history, and directed by the most temperate and skilful guides,[2] I enter with just diffidence on the subject of civil law, which has exhausted so many learned lives and clothed the walls of such spacious libraries. In a single, if possible in a short, chapter, I shall trace the Roman jurisprudence from Romulus to Justinian,[3] appreciate the labours of that emperor, and pause to contemplate the principles of a science so important to the peace and happiness of society. The laws of a nation form the most instructive portion of its history; and, although I have devoted myself to write the annals of a declining monarchy, I shall embrace the occasion to breathe the pure and invigorating air of the republic.
Laws of the kings of Rome The primitive government of Rome[4] was composed, with some political skill, of an elective king, a council of nobles, and a general assembly of the people. War and religion were administered by the supreme magistrate; and he alone proposed the laws, which were debated in the senate and finally ratified or rejected by a majority of votes in the thirty curiae or parishes of the city. Romulus, Numa, and Servius Tullius are cele-- ↑ Francis Hottoman, a learned and acute lawyer of the xvith century, wished to mortify Cujacius and to please the Chancellor de l'Hôpital. His Anti-Tribonianus (which I have never been able to procure) was published in French in 1609; and his sect was propagated in Germany (Heineccius, Opp. tom. iii. sylloge iii. p. 171-183).
- ↑ At the head of these guides I shall respectfully place the learned and perspicuous Heineccius, a German professor, who died at Halle in the year 1741 (see his Eloge in the Nouvelle Bibliothèque Germanique, tom. ii. p. 51-64). His ample works have been collected in eight volumes in 4to, Geneva, 1743-1748. The treatises which I have separately used are, 1. Historia Juris Romani et Germanici, Lugd. Batav. 1740, in 8ᵒ. 2. Syntagma Antiquitatum Romanam Jurisprudentiam Illustrantium, 2 vols, in 8ᵒ, Traject. ad Rhenum. 3. Elementa Juris Civilis secundum Ordinem Institutionum, Lugd. Bat. 1751, in 8ᵒ. 4. Elementa J. C. secundum Ordinem Pandectarum, Traject. 1772, in 8ᵒ, 2 vols. [Among the numerous works on Roman Law which have appeared since the classical histories of Savigny (Gesch. des röm. Rechts im Mittelalter) and Walther (Gesch. des röm. Rechts),the excellent Précis de Droit romain of Accarias (in 2 vols., 4th ed. 1886) may be specially mentioned.]
- ↑ Our original text is a fragment de Origine Juris (Pandect. l. i. tit. ii.) of Pomponius, a Roman lawyer, who lived under the Antonines (Heinecc. tom. iii. syll. iii. p. 66-126). It has been abridged, and probably corrupted, by Tribonian, and since restored by Bynkershoek (Opp. tom. i. p. 279-304).
- ↑ The constitutional history of the kings of Rome may be studied in the first book of Livy, and more copiously in Dionysius Halicarnassensis (l. ii. p. 80-96, 119-130 [c. 4 sqq., 57 sqq.], l. iv. p. 198-220 [c. 15 sqq.]), who sometimes betrays the character of a rhetorician and a Greek.
