30 - The Jurists

Summary

Introduction

In Rome, quite unlike Athens, there grew up a professional class of lawyers. These ‘jurists’ were originally priests, but in the course of the third century bc they came to profess a secular jurisprudence. Their role in the Roman legal system was pivotal: neither the magistrates responsible for granting legal remedies nor the judges who decided cases were lawyers; all looked to the jurists for legal advice. Although the jurists did not in the modern sense practise law, this contact with practice shaped their distinctly pragmatic approach to it. But in debate and in their writing, they also developed a sophisticated analytical jurisprudence; and particularly during the ‘classical’ period of Roman law – from the late Republic until the early third century ad – they produced a substantial legal literature. Typical of their works were large-scale commentaries on civil law and the remedies contained in the magistrate’s edict, and books of collected legal opinions. While some of their works played their part in argument of interest only to the jurists themselves, others were suited to, and written to satisfy, the diverse demands of practice or even teaching.

In the surviving writings of the Roman jurists there is no extended discussion of the nature of political society, the legitimacy of its rulers, or the laws which govern or ought to govern it. Nor is there any such discussion about justice, the sources of law, or the conflict between positive and natural law. The writings which survive indicate that, although such questions were not entirely neglected, little attention was lavished on them.