Roman Law and the Legal World of the Romans

Law in the Provinces

as well. While this theory works as a very rough approxima tion of what actually happened, the situation was in fact much more complicated. First, while this solution is compatible with Roman legal theory, the Romans themselves seem not to have worked out such a specific theory of jurisdiction. Second, they seem in practice to have decided such questions as much (if not more) as political matters than as legal ones. The same legal dispute might have been handled in very different ways at dif ferent times, in different places, or with parties of different sta tuses. Rather than trying to give a complete set of rules here (which even the most advanced scholarship cannot do with the current evidence), I will offer a list of the most important variables. • The seriousness of the dispute . Civil law matters were more likely to be left to local authorities than public (including criminal) ones. Among civil law cases, the Roman govern ment was more likely to intervene in high-value cases than in lower-value ones. In several cases we know that specific values triggered a move from local courts to the higher pro vincial authority, but we also know that these values were not standardized from place to place. A larger town might be given more judicial authority than a smaller one nearby. • Local agreements . Individual communities were sometimes granted special rights to manage their own legal affairs by treaty or by Roman decree. This was not specifically a matter of legal policy but a mark of political respect. A city that had proven particularly valuable to Rome, whether by general

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