Roman Law and the Legal World of the Romans

Writing and the Law

the earliest times. Similar, though of less importance, was the publication of a collection of legis actiones by Gnaeus Flavius in 312 bc. These special formulas were required to take a matter to court and thus to give practical effect to the rights theoreti cally offered by the laws (Chapter 11). The Twelve Tables were preserved by generations of copy ing, for patriotic as well as for legal reasons. When we start to see evidence for more “ordinary” law (mid second century bc, though our sources only start then), we see that it has a built-in concern with writing. That is, a standard clause at the end of the text of many laws ordered that they be posted in a place where they could be read easily from ground level. Now, such a clause may not always have been included (and perhaps laws without it would be less likely to survive for us to read), but it is common enough, and the wording standardized enough, to suggest that it was the norm. “Publication” of this sort is not quite like what happens today. These laws ordinarily seem to require that only one copy of themselves be set up. This also seems to have been the situation with the album of the prae tor’s Edict. Someone who wanted to know what was in one of these laws would have to find (and potentially travel to) the location where it was set up and copy it himself, or have this done, or in rare cases get access to circulating manuscript cop ies of some particularly important texts. We have already noted (Chapter 4) the weakness of the Roman archiving laws. The kinds of writing just described go back to the very early history of Roman law and government. Two other forms devel oped later, extending the importance of the written word. The

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