LORD'S LECTURES
BEACON LIGHTS OF HISTORY, VOLUME III
ANCIENT ACHIEVEMENTS.
BY JOHN LORD, LL.D.,
AUTHOR OF "THE OLD ROMAN WORLD," "MODERN EUROPE,"
ETC., ETC.
CONTENTS.
GOVERNMENTS AND LAWS.
GREEK AND ROMAN JURISPRUDENCE.
Governments and laws
Oriental laws
Priestly jurisprudence
The laws of Lycurgus
The laws of Solon
Cleisthenes
The Ecclesia at Athens
Struggle between patricians and plebeians at Rome
Tribunes of the people
Roman citizens
The Roman senate
The Roman constitution
Imperial power
The Twelve Tables
Roman lawyers
Jurisprudence under emperors
Labeo
Capito
Gaius
Paulus
Ulpian
Justinian
Tribonian
Code, Pandects, and Institutes
Roman citizenship
Laws pertaining to marriage
Extent of paternal power
Transfer of property
Contracts
The courts
Crimes
Fines
Penal statutes
Personal rights
Slavery
Security of property
Authorities
THE FINE ARTS.
ARCHITECTURE, SCULPTURE, PAINTING.
Early architecture
Egyptian monuments
The Temple of Karnak
The pyramids
Babylonian architecture
Indian architecture
Greek architecture
The Doric order
The Parthenon
The Ionic order
The Corinthian order
Roman architecture
The arch
Vitruvius
Greek sculpture
Phidias
Statue of Zeus
Praxiteles
Scopas
Lysippus
Roman sculpture
Greek painters
Polygnotus
Apollodorus
Zeuxis
Parrhasius
Apelles
The decline of art
Authorities
ANCIENT SCIENTIFIC KNOWLEDGE.
ASTRONOMY, GEOGRAPHY, ETC.
Ancient astronomy
Chaldaean astronomers
Egyptian astronomy
The Greek astronomers
Thales
Anaximenes
Aristarchus
Archimedes
Hipparchus
Ptolemy
The Roman astronomers
Geometry
Euclid
Empirical science
Hippocrates
Galen
Physical science
Geography
Pliny
Eratosthenes
Authorities
MATERIAL LIFE OF THE ANCIENTS.
MECHANICAL AND USEFUL ARTS.
Mechanical arts
Material life in Egypt
Domestic utensils
Houses and furniture
Entertainments
Glass manufacture
Linen fabrics
Paper manufacture
Leather and tanners
Carpenters and boat-builders
Agriculture
Field sports
Ornaments of dress
Greek arts
Roman luxuries
Material wonders
Great cities
Commerce
Roman roads
Ancient Rome
Architectural wonders
Roman monuments
Roman spectacles
Gladiatorial shows
Roman triumphs
Authorities
THE MILITARY ART.
WEAPONS, ENGINES, DISCIPLINE.
The tendency to violence and war
Early wars
Progress in the art of war
Sesostris
Egyptian armies
Military weapons
Chariots of war
Persian armies, Cyrus
Greek warfare
Spartan phalanx
Alexander the Great
Roman armies
Hardships of Roman soldiers
Military discipline
The Roman legion
Importance of the infantry
The cavalry
Military engines
Ancient fortifications
Military officers
The praetorian cohort
Roman camps
Consolidation of Roman power
Authorities
CICERO.
ROMAN LITERATURE.
Condition of Roman society when Cicero was born
His education and precocity
He adopts the profession of the law
His popularity as an orator
Elected Quaestor; his Aedileship
Prosecution of Verres
His letters to Atticus; his vanity
His Praetorship; declines a province
His Consulship; conspiracy of Catiline
Banishment of Cicero: his weakness; his recall
His law practice; his eloquence
His provincial government
His return to Rome
His fears in view of the rivalry between Caesar and Pompey
Sides with Pompey
Death of Tullia and divorce of Terentia
Second marriage of Cicero
Literary labors: his philosophical writings
His detestation of Imperialism
His philippics against Antony
His proscription, flight, and death
His great services
Character of his eloquence
His artistic excellence of style
His learning and attainments; his character
His immortal legacy
Authorities
CLEOPATRA.
THE WOMAN OF PAGANISM.
Why Cleopatra represents the woman of Paganism
Glory of Ancient Rome
Paganism recognizes the body rather than the soul
Ancestors of Cleopatra
The wonders of Alexandria
Cleopatra of Greek origin
The mysteries of Ancient Egypt
Early beauty and accomplishments of Cleopatra
Her attractions to Caesar
Her residence in Rome
Her first acquaintance with Antony
The style of her beauty
Her character
Character of Antony
Antony and Cleopatra in Cilicia
Magnificence of Cleopatra
Infatuation of Antony
Motives of Cleopatra
Antony's gifts to Cleopatra
Indignation of the Romans
Antony gives up his Parthian expedition
Returns to Alexandria
Contest with Octavius
Battle of Actium
Wisdom of Octavius
Death of Antony
Subsequent conduct of Cleopatra
Nature of her love for Antony
Immense sacrifices of Antony
Tragic fate of Cleopatra
Frequency of suicide at Rome
Immorality no bar to social position in Greece and Rome
Dulness of home in Pagan antiquity
Drudgeries of women
Influence of women on men
Paganism never recognized the equality of women with men
It denied to them education
Consequent degradation of women
Paganism without religious consolation
Did not recognize the value of the soul
And thus took no cognizance of the higher aspirations of man
The revenge of woman under degradation
Women, under Paganism, took no interest in what elevates society
Men, therefore, fled to public amusements
No true society under Paganism
Society only created by Christianity
PAGAN SOCIETY.
GLORY AND SHAME.
Glories of the ancient civilization
A splendid external deception
Moral evils
Imperial despotism
Prostration of liberties
Some good emperors
Disproportionate fortunes
Luxurious living
General extravagance
Pride and insolence of the aristocracy
Gibbon's description of the nobles
The plebeian class
Hopelessness and disgrace of poverty
Popular superstitions
The slaves
The curse of slavery
Degradation of the female sex
Bitter satires of Juvenal
Games and festivals
Gladiatorial shows
General abandonment to pleasure
The baths
General craze for money-making
Universal corruption
Saint Paul's estimate of Roman vices
Decline and ruin a logical necessity
The Sibylline prophecy
Authorities
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
VOLUME III.
Cleopatra Tests the Poison which She Intends for Her
Own Destruction on Her Slaves.... _Frontispiece_
_After the painting by Alexander Cabanel_.
Justinian Orders the Compilation of the Pandects
_After the painting by Benjamin Constant_.
The Temple of Karnak
_After a photograph_.
The Laocoön
_After the photograph from the statue in the Vatican, Rome_.
The Death of Archimedes
_After the painting by E. Vimont_.
Race of Roman Chariots
_After the painting by V. Checa_.
Sale of Slaves in a Roman Camp
_After the painting by R. Coghe_.
Marcus Tullius Cicero
_From the bust in the Uffizi Gallery, Florence_.
Cleopatra Obtains an Interview with Caesar
_After the painting by J.L. Gerome_.
Death of Cleopatra
_After the painting by John Collier_.
A Roman Bacchanal
_After the painting by W. Kotarbinski_.
GOVERNMENTS AND LAWS.
GREEK AND ROMAN JURISPRUDENCE.
624 B.C.-550 A.D.
There is not much in ancient governments and laws to interest us, except
such as were in harmony with natural justice, and were designed for the
welfare of all classes in the State. A jurisprudence founded on the
edicts of absolute kings, or on the regulations of a priestly caste, is
necessarily partial, and may be unenlightened. But those laws which are
gradually enacted for the interests of the whole body of the
people,--for the rich and poor, the powerful and feeble alike,--have
generally been the result of great and diverse experiences, running
through centuries, the work of wise men under constitutional forms of
government. The jurisprudence of nations based on equity is a growth or
development according to public wants and necessities, especially in
countries having popular liberty and rights, as in England and the
United States.
We do not find in the history of ancient nations such a jurisprudence,
except in the free States of Greece and among the Romans, who had a
natural genius or aptitude for government, and where the people had a
powerful influence in legislation, until even the name of liberty was
not invoked.
Among the Egyptians, Assyrians, and Babylonians the only laws were the
edicts of kings or the regulations of priests, mostly made with a view
of cementing their own power, except those that were dictated by
benevolence or the pressing needs of the people, who were ground down
and oppressed, and protected only as slaves were once protected in the
Southern States of America. Wise and good monarchs doubtless issued
decrees for the benefit of all classes, such as conscience or knowledge
dictated, whenever they felt their great responsibilities, as in some of
the absolute monarchies of Europe; but they never issued their decrees
at the suggestions or demands of those classes for whom the laws were
made. The voice of the people was ignored, except so far as it moved the
pity or appealed to the hearts and consciences of their rulers; the
people had, and claimed, no _rights_. The only men to whom rulers
listened, or by whom they were controlled, were those whom they chose as
counsellors and ministers, who were supposed to advise with a view to
the sovereign's benefit, and that of the empire generally.
The same may be said in general of other Oriental monarchies,
especially when embarked in aggressive wars, where the will of the
monarch was supreme and unresisted, as in Persia. In India and China the
government was not so absolute, since it was checked by feudatory
princes, almost independent like the feudal barons and dukes of
mediaeval Europe.
Nor was there probably among Oriental nations any elaborate codification
of the decrees and laws as in Greece and Rome, except by the priests for
their ritual service, like that which marked the jurisprudence of the
Israelites. There were laws against murder, theft, adultery, and other
offences, since society cannot exist anywhere without such laws; but
there was no complicated jurisprudence produced by the friction of
competing classes striving for justice and right, or even for the
interests of contending parties. We do not look to Egypt or to China for
wise punishment of ordinary crimes; but we do look to Greece and Rome,
and to Rome especially, for a legislation which shall balance the
complicated relations of society on principles of enlightened reason.
Moreover, those great popular rights which we now most zealously defend
have generally been extorted in the strife of classes and parties,
sometimes from kings, and sometimes from princes and nobles. Where there
has been no opposition to absolutism these rights have not been secured;
but whenever and wherever the people have been a power they have
imperiously made their wants known, and so far as they have been
reasonable they have been finally secured,--perhaps after angry
expostulations and, disputations.
Now, it is this kind of legislation which is remarkable in the history
of Greece and Rome, secured by a combination of the people against the
ruling classes in the interests of justice and the common welfare, and
finally endorsed and upheld even by monarchs themselves. It is from this
legislation that modern nations have learned wisdom; for a permanent law
in a free country may be the result of a hundred years of discussion or
contention,--a compromise of parties, a lesson in human experience. As
the laws of Greece and Rome alone among the ancients are rich in moral
wisdom and adapted more or less to all nations and ages in the struggle
for equal rights and wise social regulations, I shall confine myself to
them. Besides, I aim not to give useless and curious details, but to
show how far in general the enlightened nations of antiquity made
attainments in those things which we call civilization, and particularly
in that great department which concerns so nearly all human
interests,--that of the regulation of mutual social relations; and this
by modes and with results which have had their direct influence upon our
modern times.
When we consider the native genius of the Greeks, and their marvellous
achievements in philosophy, literature, and art, we are surprised that
they were so inferior to the Romans in jurisprudence,--although in the
early days of the Roman republic a deputation of citizens was sent to
Athens to study the laws of Solon. But neither nations nor individuals
are great in everything. Before Solon lived, Lycurgus had given laws to
the Spartans. This lawgiver, one of the descendants of Hercules, was
born, according to Grote, about eight hundred and eighty years before
Christ, and was the uncle of the reigning king. There is, however, no
certainty as to the time when he lived; it was probably about the period
when Carthage was founded by the Phoenicians. He instituted the Spartan
senate, and gave an aristocratic form to the constitution. But the
senate, composed of about thirty old men who acted in conjunction with
the two kings, did not differ materially from the council of chiefs, or
old men, found in other ancient Grecian States; the Spartan chiefs
simply modified or curtailed the power of the kings. In the course of
time the senate, with the kings included in it, became the governing
body of the State, and this oligarchical form of government lasted
several hundred years. We know but little of the especial laws given by
Lycurgus. We know the distinctions of society,--citizens and helots,
and their mutual relations,--the distribution of lands to check luxury,
the public men, the public training of youth, the severe discipline to
which all were subjected, the cruelty exercised towards slaves, the
attention given to gymnastic exercises and athletic sports,--in short,
the habits and customs of the people rather than any regular system of
jurisprudence. Lycurgus was the trainer of a military brotherhood rather
than a law-giver. Under his régime the citizen belonged to the State
rather than to his family, and all the ends of the State were warlike
rather than peaceful,--not looking to the settlement of quarrels on
principles of equity, or a development of industrial interests, which
are the great aims of modern legislation.
The influence of the Athenian Solon on the laws which affected
individuals is more apparent than that of the Spartan Lycurgus, the
earliest of the Grecian legislators. But Solon had a predecessor in
Athens itself,--Draco, who in 624 was appointed to reduce to writing the
arbitrary decisions of the archons, thus giving a form of permanent law
and a basis for a court of appeal. Draco's laws were extraordinarily
severe, punishing small thefts and even laziness with death. The
formulation of any system of justice would have, as Draco's did, a
beneficial influence on the growth of the State; but the severity of
these bloody laws caused them to be hated and in practice neglected,
until Solon arose. Solon was born in Athens about 638 B.C., and
belonged to the noblest family of the State. He was contemporary with
Pisistratus and Thales. His father having lost his property, Solon
applied himself to merchandise,--always a respectable calling in a
mercantile city. He first became known as a writer of love poems; then
came into prominence as a successful military commander of volunteer
forces in a disastrous war; and at last he gained the confidence of his
countrymen so completely that in a period of anarchy, distress, and
mutiny,--the poor being so grievously oppressed by the rich that a sixth
part of the produce of land went to the landlord,--he was chosen archon,
with authority to revise the laws, and might have made himself king. He
abolished the custom of selling the body of a debtor for debt, and even
annulled debts in a state of general distress,--which did not please the
rich, nor even the poor, since they desired a redivision of lands such
as Lycurgus had made in Sparta. He repealed the severe laws of Draco,
which inflicted capital punishment for so many small offences, retaining
the extreme penalty only for murder and treason. In order further to
promote the interests of the people, he empowered any man whatever to
enter an action for one that was injured. He left the great offices of
state, however, in the hands of the rich, giving the people a share in
those which were not so important. He re-established the council of the
Areopagus, composed of those who had been archons, and nine were
appointed annually for the general guardianship of the laws; but he
instituted another court or senate of four hundred citizens, for the
cognizance of all matters before they were submitted to the higher
court. Although the poorest and most numerous class were not eligible
for office, they had the right of suffrage, and could vote for the
principal officers. It would at first seem that the legislation of Solon
gave especial privileges to the rich, but it is generally understood
that he was the founder of the democracy of Athens. He gave the
Athenians, not the best possible code, but the best they were capable of
receiving. He intended to give to the people as much power as was
strictly needed, and no more; but in a free State the people continually
encroach on the privileges of the rich, and thus gradually the chief
power falls into their hands.
Whatever the power which Solon gave to the people, and however great
their subsequent encroachments, it cannot be doubted that he was the
first to lay the foundations of constitutional government,--that is, one
in which the people took part in legislation and in the election of
rulers. The greatest benefit which he conferred on the State was in the
laws which gave relief to poor debtors, those which enabled people to
protect themselves by constitutional means, and those which prohibited
fathers from selling their daughters and sisters for slaves,--an
abomination which had long disgraced the Athenian republic.
Some of Solon's laws were of questionable utility. He prohibited the
exportation of the fruits of the soil in Attica, with the exception of
olive-oil alone,--a regulation difficult to be enforced in a mercantile
State. Neither would he grant citizenship to immigrants; and he released
sons from supporting their parents in old age if the parents had
neglected to give them a trade. He encouraged all developments of
national industries, knowing that the wealth of the State depended on
them. Solon was the first Athenian legislator who granted the power of
testamentary bequests when a man had no legitimate children. Sons
succeeded to the property of their parents, with the obligation of
giving a marriage dowry to their sisters. If there were no sons, the
daughters inherited the property of their parents; but a person who had
no children could bequeath his property to whom he pleased. Solon
prohibited costly sacrifices at funerals; he forbade evil-speaking of
the dead, and indeed of all persons before judges and archons; he
pronounced a man infamous who took part in a sedition.
When this enlightened and disinterested man had finished his work of
legislation, 494 B.C., he visited Egypt and Cyprus, and devoted his
leisure to the composition of poems. He also, it is said, when a
prisoner in the hands of the Persians, visited Croesus, the rich king of
Lydia, and gave to him an admonitory lesson on the vicissitudes of life.
After a prolonged absence, Solon returned to Athens about the time of
the usurpation of his kinsman Peisistratus (560 B.C.), who, however,
suffered the aged legislator and patriot to go unharmed, and even
allowed most of his laws to remain in force.
The constitution and laws of Athens continued substantially for about a
hundred years after the archonship of Solon, when the democratic party
under Cleisthenes gained complete ascendency. Some modification of the
laws was then made. The political franchise was extended to all free
native Athenians. The command of the military forces was given to ten
generals, one from each tribe, instead of being intrusted to one of the
archons. The Ecclesia, a formal assembly of the citizens, met more
frequently. The people were called into direct action as _dikasts_, or
jurors; all citizens were eligible to the magistracy, even to the
archonship; ostracism,--which virtually was exile without
disgrace,--became a political necessity to check the ascendency of
demagogues.
Such were the main features of the constitution and jurisprudence of
Athens when the struggle between the patricians and plebeians of Rome
began, to which we now give our attention. It was the real beginning of
constitutional liberty in Rome. Before this time the government was in
the hands either of kings or aristocrats. The patricians were
descendants of the original Latin, Sabine, and Etruscan families; the
plebeians were the throng of common folk brought in by conquest or later
immigration,--mostly of Latin origin. The senate was the ruling power
after the expulsion of the kings, and senators were selected from the
great patrician families, who controlled by their wealth and influence
the popular elections, the army and navy, and all foreign relations.
Consuls, the highest magistrates, who commanded the armies, were
annually elected by the people; but for several centuries the consuls
belonged to great families. The constitution was essentially
aristocratic, and the aristocracy was based on wealth. Power was in the
hands of nobles, whether their ancestors were patricians or plebeians,
although in the early ages of the Republic they were mostly patricians
by birth. But with the growth of Rome new families that were not
descended from the ancient tribes became prominent,--like the Claudii,
the Julii, and the Servilii,--and were incorporated with the nobility.
There are very few names in Roman history before the time of Marius
which did not belong to this noble class. The _plebs_, or common people,
had at first no political privileges whatever, not even the right of
suffrage, and were not allowed to marry into patrician rank. Indeed,
they were politically and socially oppressed.
The first great event which gave the plebs protection and political
importance was the appointment of representatives called "tribunes of
the people,"--a privilege extorted from the patricians. The tribunes had
the right to be present at the deliberations of the senate; their
persons were inviolable, and they had the power of veto over obnoxious
laws. Their power continually increased, until they were finally elected
from the senatorial body. In 421 B.C. the plebs had gained sufficient
influence to establish the _connubium_, by which they were allowed to
intermarry with patricians. In the same year they were admitted to the
quaestorship, which office entitled the possessor to a seat in the
senate. The quaestors had charge of the public money. In 336 B.C. the
plebeians obtained the praetorship, a judicial office.
In the year 286 B.C. the distinctions vanished between plebeians and
patricians, and the term _populus_ instead of _plebs_, was applied to
all Roman people alike. Originally the _populus_ comprised strictly
Roman citizens, those who belonged to the original tribes, and who had
the right of suffrage. When the plebeians obtained access to the great
offices of the state, the senate represented the whole people as it
formerly represented the _populus_, and the term _populus_ was enlarged
to embrace the entire community.
The senate was an august body, and was very powerful. It was both
judicial and legislative, and for several centuries was composed of
patricians alone. Its members always belonged to the aristocracy,
whether of patrician or plebeian descent, and were supposed to be rich.
Under Augustus it required one million two hundred thousand sesterces
annually to support the senatorial dignity. The senate, the members of
which were chosen for life, had the superintendence of matters of
religion and foreign relations; it commanded the levies of troops; it
regulated duties and taxes; it gave audience to ambassadors; it
determined upon the way that war should be conducted; it decreed to what
provinces governors should be sent; it declared martial law in the
appointment of dictators; and it decreed triumphs to fortunate generals.
The senators, as a badge of distinction, wore upon their tunics a broad
purple stripe, and they had the privilege of the best seats in the
theatres. Their decisions were laws _(leges)._ A large part of them had
held curule offices, which entitled them to a seat in the senate for
life. The curule officers were the consuls, the praetors, the aediles,
the quaestors, the tribunes; so that an able senator was sure of a great
office in the course of his life. A man could scarcely be a senator
unless he had held a great office, nor could he often have held a great
office unless he were a senator. Thus it would seem that the Roman
constitution for three hundred years after the expulsion of the kings
was essentially aristocratic. The _plebs_ had but small consideration
till the time of the Gracchi.
But after the institution of tribunes a change in the constitution
gradually took place, so that it was neither aristocratic nor popular
exclusively, but was composed of both elements, and was a system of
balance of power between the various classes. The more complete the
balance of power, the closer is the resemblance to a constitutional
government. When one class acted as a check against another class, as
gradually came to pass, until the subversion of liberties by successful
generals, the senate, the magistrates, and the people in their
assemblies shared between them the political power, but the senate had a
preponderating influence. The judicial, the legislative, and the
executive authority was as well defined in Roman legislation as it is in
English or American. No person was above the authority of the laws; no
one class could subvert the liberties and prerogatives of another
class,--even the senate could not override the constitution. The
consuls, elected by the centuries, presided over the senate and over the
assemblies of the people. There was no absolute power exercised at Rome
until the subversion of the constitution, except by dictators chosen by
the senate in times of imminent danger. Nor could senators elect members
of their own body; the censors alone had the right of electing from the
ex-magistrates, and of excluding such as were unworthy. The consuls
could remain in office but a year, and could be called to account when
their terms of office had expired. The tribunes of the people ultimately
could prevent a consul from convening the senate, could seize a consul
and imprison him, and could veto an ordinance of the senate itself. The
nobles had no exclusive privilege like the feudal aristocracy of
mediaeval Europe, although it was their aim to secure the high
magistracies to the members of their own body. The term _nobilitas_
implied that some one of a man's ancestors had filled a curule
magistracy. A patrician, long before the reforms of the Gracchi, had
become a man of secondary importance, but the nobles were aristocrats to
the close of the republic, and continued to secure the highest offices;
they prevented their own extinction by admitting into their ranks those
who distinguished themselves,--that is, exercising their influence in
the popular elections to secure the magistracies from among themselves.
The Roman constitution then, as gradually developed by the necessities
and crises that arose, which I have not space to mention, was a
wonderful monument of human wisdom. The nobility were very powerful from
their wealth and influence, but the people were not ground down. There
were no oppressive laws to reduce them to practical slavery; what rights
they gained they retained. They constantly extorted new privileges,
until they were sufficiently powerful to be courted by demagogues. It
was the demagogues, generally aristocratic ones, like Catiline and
Caesar, who subverted the liberties of the people by buying votes. But
for nearly five hundred years not a man arose whom the Roman people
feared, and the proud symbol "SPQR," on the standards of the armies of
the republic, bore the name of the Roman Senate and People to the ends
of the earth.
When, however, the senate came to be made up of men whom the great
generals selected; when the tribunes played into the hands of the very
men they were created to oppose; when the high-priest of a people,
originally religious, was chosen politically and without regard to moral
or religious consideration; when aristocratic nobles left their own
ranks to steal the few offices which the people controlled,--then the
constitution, under which the Romans had advanced to the conquest of the
world, became subverted, and the empire was a consolidated despotism.
Under the emperors there was no constitution, since they combined in
their own persons all the great offices of state, and controlled the
senate, the army, the tribunals of the law, the distant provinces, the
city itself, and regulated taxes and imposed burdens as they pleased.
The senate lost its independence, the courts their justice, the army its
spirit, and the people their hopes. And yet the old forms remained; the
senate met as in the days of the Gracchi, and there were consuls and
praetors as before.
However much we may deplore the subversion of the Roman constitution and
the absolute reign of the emperors, in which most historians see a
political necessity, there was yet under these emperors, whether good or
bad, the reign of law, the bequest of five hundred years' experience.
The emperors reigned despotically, but under the forms of legislation.
Nor did they attempt to subvert laws which did not interfere with their
own political power. What is called jurisprudence they even improved, as
that later imperial despot Napoleon gave a code to the nation he ruled.
It is this science of jurisprudence, for which the Romans had a genius,
that gives them their highest claim to be ranked among the benefactors
of mankind. They created legal science. Its aim was justice,--equity in
the relations between man and man. This was the pride of the Roman
world, even under the rule of tyrants and madmen, and this has survived
all the calamities of fifteen hundred years. The Roman laws--founded by
the Republic, but symmetrically completed by the Empire--have more
powerfully affected the interests of civilization than have the
philosophy and arts of Greece. Roman jurisprudence was not perfectly
developed until five hundred years after the Christian era, when
Justinian consolidated it into the Code, the Pandects, and the
Institutes. The classical jurists, like Gaius, Ulpian, and Paulus, may
have laid the foundation, but the superstructure was raised under the
auspices of the imperial despots.
The earliest code of Roman laws was called the Twelve Tables, framed
from the report of the commissioners sent to Athens and other Greek
States, to collect what was most useful in their legal systems. The laws
of the Twelve Tables were the basis of all the Roman laws, civil and
religious. But the edicts of the praetors, who were the great equity
judges as well as the common-law magistrates, proclaimed certain changes
which custom and the practice of the courts had introduced; and these,
added to the _leges populi_, or laws proposed by the consul and passed
by the centuries, the _plebiscita_, or laws proposed by the tribunes
and passed by the tribes, and the _senatus consulta,_ or decrees of the
senate, gradually swelled the laws to a great number. Three thousand
engraved plates of brass containing these various laws were deposited in
the capitol.
Subtleties and fictions were in the course of litigations introduced by
the lawyers to defeat the written statutes, and jurisprudence became
complicated as early as the time of Cicero. Even the opinions of eminent
lawyers were adopted by the legal profession as authoritative, and were
recognized by the courts. The evils of a complicated jurisprudence were
so evident in the seventh century of the city, that Q. Mucius Scaevola,
a great lawyer, when consul, published a scientific elaboration of the
civil law. Cicero studied law under him, and his contemporaries, Varus
and Aelius Gallus, wrote learned treatises, from which extracts appear
in the Digest made under the Emperor Justinian, 528 A.D. Julius Caesar
contemplated a complete revision of the laws, but did not live long
enough to carry out his intentions. His legislation, so far as he
directed his mind to it, was very just. Among other laws established by
him was one which ordained that creditors should accept lands as payment
for their outstanding debts, according to the value determined by
commissioners. In his time the relative value of money had changed, and
was greatly diminished. The most important law of Augustus, deserving of
all praise, was that which related to the manumission of slaves; but he
did not interfere with the social relations of the people after he had
deprived them of political liberty. He once attempted, by his _Lex
Julia_, to counteract the custom which then prevailed, of abstaining
from legal marriage and substituting concubinage instead, by which the
free population declined; but this attempt to improve the morals of the
people met with such opposition from the tribes and centuries that the
next emperor abolished popular assemblies altogether, which Augustus had
feared to do. The senate in the time of the emperors, composed chiefly
of lawyers and magistrates, and entirely dependent upon them, became the
great fountain of law. By the original constitution the people were the
source of power, and the senate merely gave or refused its approbation
to the laws proposed; but under the emperors the _comitia_, or popular
assemblies, disappeared, and the senate passed decrees which had the
force of laws, subject to the veto of the Emperor. It was not until the
time of Septimus Severus and Caracalla (second century A.D.) that the
legislative action of the senate ceased, and the edicts and rescripts of
emperors took the place of all legislation.
The golden age of Roman jurisprudence was from the birth of Cicero to
the reign of the Emperor Alexander Severus, 222 A.D.; before this period
it was an occult science, confined to praetors, pontiffs, and patrician
lawyers. But in the latter days of the republic law became the
fashionable study of Roman youth, and eminent masters arose. The first
great lawyer who left behind him important works was Q. Mucius Scaevola,
who wrote a treatise in eighteen books on the civil law. "He was," says
Cicero, "the most eloquent of jurists and the most learned of orators."
This work, George Long thinks, had a great influence on contemporaries
and on subsequent jurists, who followed it as a model. It is the oldest
work from which there are any excerpts in the Digest.
Servius Sulpicius, the friend of Cicero and his fellow-student in
oratory, surpassed his teachers Balbus and Gallus, and was the equal in
reputation of the great Mucius Scaevola, the Pontifex Maximus, who said
it was disgraceful for a patrician and a noble to be ignorant of the law
with which he had to do. Cicero ascribes the great superiority of
Servius as a lawyer to the study of philosophy, which disciplined and
developed his mind, and enabled him to deduce his conclusions from his
premises with logical precision. He left behind him one hundred and
eighty treatises, and had numerous pupils, among whom A. Ofilius and
Alfenus Varus, Cato, Julius Caesar, Antony, and Cicero were great
lawyers. Labeo, in the time of Augustus, wrote four hundred books on
jurisprudence, spending six months in the year in giving instruction to
his pupils and in answering legal questions, and the other six months in
the country in writing books. Like all the great Roman jurists, he was
versed in literature and philosophy, and so devoted to his profession
that he refused political office. His rival Capito was equally learned
in all departments of the law, and left behind him as many treatises as
Labeo. These two jurists were the founders of celebrated schools, like
the ancient philosophers, and each had distinguished followers. Gaius,
who flourished in the time of the Antonines, was a great legal
authority; and the recent discovery of his Institutes has revealed the
least mutilated fragment of Roman jurisprudence which exists, and one of
the most valuable, which sheds great light on ancient Roman law; it was
found in the library of Verona. No Roman jurist had a higher reputation
than Papinian, who was praefectus praetorio under Septimius Severus (193
A.D.),--an office which made him second only to the Emperor, a sort of
grand vizier, whose power extended over all departments of the State; he
was beheaded by Caracalla. The great commentator Cujacius declares that
he was the first of all lawyers who have been, or who are to be; that no
one ever surpassed him in legal knowledge, and no one will ever equal
him. Paulus was his contemporary, and held the same office as Papinian.
He was the most fertile of Roman law-writers, and there is more taken
from him in Justinian's Digest than from any other jurist, except
Ulpian. There are two thousand and eighty-three excerpts from this
writer,--one sixth of the whole Digest. No legal writer, ancient or
modern, has handled so many subjects. In perspicuity he is said to be
inferior to Ulpian, one of the most famous of jurists, who was his
contemporary. Ulpian has also exercised a great influence on modern
jurisprudence from the copious extracts of his writings in the Digest.
He was the chief adviser of Alexander Severus, and like Paulus was
praefectus praetorio. The number of excerpts in the Digest from him is
said to be two thousand four hundred and sixty-two, and they form a
third part of it. Some fragments of his writings remain. The last of the
great civilians associated with Gaius, Papinian, Paulus, and Ulpian, as
oracles of jurisprudence, was Modestinus, who was a pupil of Ulpian. He
wrote both in Greek and Latin. There are three hundred and forty-five
excerpts in the Digest from his writings, the titles of which show the
extent and variety of his labors.
These eminent lawyers shed great glory on the Roman civilization. In the
earliest times men sought distinction on the fields of battle, but in
the latter days of the republic honor was conferred for forensic
ability. The first pleaders of Rome were not jurisconsults, but
aristocratic "patrons," who looked after their "clients,"--men of lower
social grade, who in return for protection and assistance rendered
service, sometimes political by voting, sometimes pecuniary, sometimes
military. But when law became complicated, a class of men arose to
interpret it. These men were held in great honor, and reached by their
services the highest offices,--like Cicero and Hortensius. No
remuneration was given originally for forensic pleading beyond the
services which the client gave to a patron, but gradually the practice
of the law became lucrative. Hortensius, as well as Cicero, gained an
immense fortune; he had several villas, a gallery of paintings, a large
stock of wines, parks, fish-ponds, and aviaries. Cicero had villas in
all parts of Italy, a house on the Palatine with columns of Numidian
marble, and a fortune of twenty millions of sesterces, equal to eight
hundred thousand dollars. Most of the great statesmen of Rome in the
time of Cicero were either lawyers or generals. Crassus, Pompey, P.
Sextus, M. Marcellus, P. Clodius, Asinius Pollio, C. Cicero, M.
Antonius, Julius Caesar, Caelius, Brutus, Catullus, were all celebrated
for their forensic efforts. Candidates for the bar studied four years
under a distinguished jurist, and were required to pass a rigorous
examination. The judges were chosen from members of the bar, as well as
in later times the senators. The great lawyers were not only learned in
the law, but possessed great accomplishments. Varro was a lawyer, and
was the most learned man that Rome ever produced. But under the emperors
the lawyers were chiefly distinguished for their legal attainments, like
Paulus and Ulpian.
During this golden age of Roman jurisprudence many commentaries were
written on the Twelve Tables, the Perpetual Edict, the Laws of the
People, and the Decrees of the senate, as well as a vast mass of
treatises on every department of the law, most of which have perished.
The Institutes of Gaius, already mentioned, are the most valuable that
remain, and have thrown great light on some important branches
previously involved in obscurity. Their use in explaining the Institutes
of Justinian is spoken of very highly by Mackenzie, since the latter are
mainly founded on the long-lost work of Gaius. The great lawyers who
flourished from Trajan to Alexander Severus, like Gaius, Ulpian, Paulus,
Papinian, and Modestinus, had no successors who can be compared with
them, and their works became standard authorities in the courts of law.
After the death of Alexander Severus, 235 A.D., no great accession was
made to Roman law until Theodosius II., 438 A.D., caused the
constitutions, from Constantine to his own time, to be collected and
arranged in sixteen books. This was called the Theodosian Code, which
in the West was held in high esteem. It was very influential among the
Germanic nations, serving as the chief basis of their early legislation;
it also paved the way for the more complete codification that followed
in the Justinian Code, which superseded it.
To Justinian belongs the immortal glory of reforming the jurisprudence
of the Romans. "In the space of ten centuries," says Gibbon, "the
infinite variety of laws and legal opinions had filled many thousand
volumes, which no fortune could purchase, and no capacity could digest.
Books could not easily be found, and the judges, poor in the midst of
riches, were reduced to the exercise of their illiterate discretion."
The emperors had very early begun to issue ordinances, under the
authority of the various offices gathered into their hands; and these,
together with the answers to appeals from the lower courts made to the
emperors directly, or to the sort of supreme court which they
established, were called _imperial constitutions_ and _rescripts_.
Justinian determined to unite in one body all the rules of law, whatever
may have been their origin; and in the year 528 appointed ten
jurisconsults, among whom was the celebrated Tribonian, to select and
arrange the imperial constitutions and rescripts, leaving out what was
obsolete or useless or contradictory, and to make such alterations as
the circumstances required. This was called the _Code_, divided into
twelve books, and comprising the constitutions from Hadrian to
Justinian. It was published in fourteen months after it was undertaken.
Justinian thereupon authorized Tribonian, then quaestor, _vir magnificus
magisteria dignitate inter agentes decoratus,_--"for great titles were
now given to the officers of the crown,"--to prepare, with the
assistance of sixteen associates, a collection of extracts from the
writings of the most eminent jurists, so as to form a body of law for
the government of the empire, with power to select and omit and alter;
and this immense work was done in three years, and published under the
title of Digest, or Pandects. Says Lord Mackenzie:
"All the judicial learning of former times was laid under contribution
by Tribonian and his colleagues. Selections from the works of
thirty-nine of the ablest lawyers, scattered over two thousand separate
treatises, were collected in one volume; and care was taken to inform
posterity that three millions of lines were abridged and reduced in
these extracts to the modest number of one hundred and fifty thousand.
Among the selected jurists only three names belonged to the age of the
republic,--the civilians who flourished under the first emperors are
seldom appealed to; so that most of the writers whose works have
contributed to the Pandects lived within a period of one hundred years.
More than a third of the whole Pandects is from Ulpian, and next to him
the principal writers are Paulus, Papinian, Salvius Julianus, Pomponius,
Q. Cervidius Scaevola, and Gaius. Though the variety of subjects is
immense, the Digest has no claims to scientific arrangement. It is a
vast cyclopedia of heterogeneous law badly arranged; everything is
there, but everything is not in its proper place."
Neither the Digest nor the Code was adapted to elementary instruction;
it was therefore necessary to prepare a treatise on the principles of
Roman law. This was intrusted to Tribonian and two professors,
Theophilus and Dorotheus. It is probable that Tribonian merely
superintended the work, which was founded chiefly on the Institutes of
Gaius, divided into four books. It has been universally admired for its
method and elegant precision. It was intended merely as an introduction
to the Pandects and the Code, and was entitled the Institutes.
The _Novels_, or _New Constitutions, of Justinian_ were subsequently
published, being the new ordinances of the Emperor and the changes he
thought proper to make, and were therefore of high authority. The Code,
Pandects, Institutes, and Novels of Justinian comprise the Roman law as
received in Europe, in the form given by the school of Bologna, and is
called the "Corpus Juris Civilis." Savigny says:--
"It was in that form that the Roman law became the common law of Europe;
and when, four centuries later, other sources came to be added to it,
the _Corpus Juris_ of the school of Bologna had been so universally
received, and so long established as a basis of practice, that the new
discoveries remained in the domain of science, and served only for the
theory of the law. For the same reason, the Ante-Justinian law is
excluded from practice."
After Justinian the old texts were left to moulder as useless though
venerable, and they have nearly all disappeared. The Code, the Pandects,
and the Institutes were declared to be the only legitimate authority,
and alone were admitted to the tribunals or taught in the schools. The
rescripts of the early emperors recognized too many popular rights to
suit the despotic character of Justinian; and the older jurists, like
the Scaevolas, Sulpicius, and Labeo, were distasteful from their
sympathy with free institutions. Different opinions have been expressed
by the jurisconsults as to the merits of the Justinian collection. By
some it is regarded as a vast mass of legal lumber; by others, as a
beautiful monument of human labor. After the lapse of so many centuries
it is certain that a large portion of it is of no practical utility,
since it is not applicable to modern wants. But again, no one doubts
that it has exercised a great and good influence on moral and political
science, and introduced many enlightened views concerning the
administration of justice as well as the nature of civil government, and
thus has modified the codes of the Teutonic nations that sprang up on
the ruins of the old Roman world. It was used in the Greek empire until
the fall of Constantinople. It never entirely lost authority in Italy,
although it remained buried for centuries, till the discovery of the
Florentine copy of the Pandects at the siege of Amalfi in 1135. Peter
Valence, in the eleventh century, made use of it in a law-book which he
published.