Roman Law and the Legal World of the Romans

Roman History – The Brief Version

perhaps a little beyond. This period is distinguished from the archaic particularly by the rise of the “profession” of the jurist. Republican jurists did show an increasing degree of specialization and autonomy. Most of the important institu tions of later Roman law had been developed by the end of this period, but not necessarily systematized. A “classical” period then ensued, lasting until roughly ad 235. In terms of the legal profession, this period was marked by the grow ing absorption of legal expertise into the state. This process began immediately with the empire, but worked out subtly at first. In substance, this was a period of consolidation and working out of detail. We see a series of writers producing ever larger and more comprehensive works on the law until the process comes to a fairly sudden halt with the fall of the so-called Severan dynasty of emperors. It is probably no coin cidence that the end of this productive period coincides with the beginning of several decades of relative political insta bility. What remains afterward is lumped together as “post classical,” though this is hardly a unified category. In general, we can perhaps say that this is a period in which the jurists outside the government have lost most of their importance. Instead, the important legal texts are enactments and codifi cations in the names of various emperors (though presumably the actual authors are still legal professionals). The continuing existence of texts from earlier periods created a conservative if uneven force as well. In substance, then, the law of the post-classical period does not take a particular direction of its own.

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