whose Enchiridion is preserved in the first book of the Digest (Tit. 2. 2.), appears to have written in the time of Hadrian (870—891 V.C.) whome he styles optimus, but not, as he does Hadrian's near predecessor Nerva, diuous[1]. The book to which he referes was called, it seems, ius ciuile Papirianum — the collection or body of law edited by Papirius. It has been pointed out[2] that the form, or title at any rate, of ius — a body of law — is later than the regal period. Individual laws were probably entered, as they were enacted, in those commentaries of the pontiffs which appear to have been the first Roman records: a code, for the times to which it is attributed, is an anachronism both in the philosophical and literary point of view. Some of the pontifical records may have escaped the general conflagration, others would be re-written from memory. Out of these, in later times, a collection was probably made and dignified with the name of some legendary celebrity — perhaps originating in a real personabge — whether the Gaius Papirius who collects Numa's laws after the expulsion of the kings, the Manius who becomes the first rex sacrorum[3], Pomponius' Publius who collects the royal laws, or the Sextus of the same authority who contrives to exist in the times of 'Superbus the son of Demaratus the Corinthian'[4].
The source here ascribed to the ius Papirianum tallies with a brief indication of its contents give by Servius the commentator on Virgil. 'The poet,' says he, 'in the expression morem ritusque sacrorum has used the very title of the lex Papiria, which he knew was published on the subject of ceremonial ritual[5].' Against a lex Papiria of early times there is not one objection, in point of anachronism, as against a ius Papirianum: though the term would more naturally mean a statute carried under Papirius' auspices (compare our "Lord St Leonards' Act,'
- ↑ ib. §§ 32. 47.
- ↑ Zumpt, Criminal-recht, Absch. 1. c. 3 and Anmerkk.
- ↑ Dionysius Antiqq. 3. 36: 5. 1
- ↑ Digest. 1. 2. 2. §§ 2. 36.
- ↑ Servius on Virg. Aen. 12. 836. quod ait (Vergilius) morem ritusque sacrorum ipso titulo legis Papiriae usus est quam sciebat de ritu sacrorum publicatam. The passage does not appear in all editions, e.g. the Basle Virgil of 1561.
