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The Digest of Roman Law: Theft, Rapine, Damage and Insult
Codified by Justinian I and published under his aegis in A.D. 533, this celebrated work of legal history forms a fascinating picture of ordinary life in Rome.
191 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1979
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285 people want to read
About the author
Justinian I
229 books12 followersFrom 527, Saint Justinian I, originally Flavius Petrus Sabbatius Justinianus, Byzantine emperor, held the eastern frontier against the Persians; reconquered former Roman territories in Africa, Italy, and Spain; and ruled jointly with Theodora, his wife, to 565.
Belisarius, his general, led campaigns against the Vandals in north and the Ostrogoths.
Saint Theodora, Byzantine empress, ruled jointly with Justinian I, her husband.
Saint Justinian I, traditionally also known as the Great in the Orthodox Church, reigned. During reign, Justinian sought to revive the greatness and the lost historical western half. Justinian constitutes a distinct epoch in the later history, and the ambitious but only partly realized "restoration" marked his reign.
Because of restoration activities, modern historiography sometimes called the "last" Justinian I. The partial recovery of the defunct west expressed this ambition. Belisarius, his general, swiftly eliminated the Vandal kingdom in north. After the kingdom of Ostrogoths for more than half a century, Belisarius, Narses, and other generals subsequently restored Dalmatia and Sicily. Liberius, the prefect, reclaimed the south of the Iberian peninsula and thus established the province. These campaigns again established control over the western Mediterranean and increased the annual revenue over a million solidi. During reign, Justinian also subdued the Tzani, a people on the coast of the Black Sea.
A still more resonant aspect of legacy of Justinian I rewrote the Corpus Juris Civilis, still the basis of uniform civil law in many modern states. His reign also marked a blossoming of culture, and his building program yielded such masterpieces as the church of Hagia Sophia. A devastating outbreak of bubonic plague in the early 540s marked the end of an age of splendor.
Belisarius, his general, led campaigns against the Vandals in north and the Ostrogoths.
Saint Theodora, Byzantine empress, ruled jointly with Justinian I, her husband.
Saint Justinian I, traditionally also known as the Great in the Orthodox Church, reigned. During reign, Justinian sought to revive the greatness and the lost historical western half. Justinian constitutes a distinct epoch in the later history, and the ambitious but only partly realized "restoration" marked his reign.
Because of restoration activities, modern historiography sometimes called the "last" Justinian I. The partial recovery of the defunct west expressed this ambition. Belisarius, his general, swiftly eliminated the Vandal kingdom in north. After the kingdom of Ostrogoths for more than half a century, Belisarius, Narses, and other generals subsequently restored Dalmatia and Sicily. Liberius, the prefect, reclaimed the south of the Iberian peninsula and thus established the province. These campaigns again established control over the western Mediterranean and increased the annual revenue over a million solidi. During reign, Justinian also subdued the Tzani, a people on the coast of the Black Sea.
A still more resonant aspect of legacy of Justinian I rewrote the Corpus Juris Civilis, still the basis of uniform civil law in many modern states. His reign also marked a blossoming of culture, and his building program yielded such masterpieces as the church of Hagia Sophia. A devastating outbreak of bubonic plague in the early 540s marked the end of an age of splendor.
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Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews
April 17, 2023
Digging into all of the 50-plus volumes of the Roman emperor Justinian’s Corpus Iuris Civilis or Body of Civil Law (529-534 A.D.) is probably not worth your time – unless (a) you are a scholar in the fields of law and Roman history, or (b) you have serious plans to travel back in time and begin work as an attorney or barrister in 6th-century Constantinople. But this Penguin Books edition of excerpts from Justinian’s Digest of Roman Law provides a fine chance for the modern reader to get a sense of how the courts worked in that era that bridges the classical and the medieval worlds.
Justinian certainly kept busy; legal reform was only part of an amazingly eventful life. Six years before his birth in 482 A.D., the Western Roman Empire had already fallen; but the Eastern Roman Empire endured, and Justinian, although of ordinary birth, had the good fortune to be adopted by his uncle, the emperor Justin.
Succeeding his uncle as emperor in 527 A.D., Justinian set himself to the task of renovatio imperii, “restoration of the Empire,” and was more successful at the task than many observers of the time might have expected. By 540 A.D., Justinian’s top general, Belisarius, had reconquered once-Roman territories in Spain and North Africa. Justinian and Belisarius even brought all of the Italian-speaking lands back within the empire – the last time Italy would be politically unified under one government before the Risorgimento of 1871.
And just as Justinian sought to restore Rome’s broken empire, so he endeavoured to revitalize Rome’s legal code. Toward that end, the emperor brought together an all-star team of the best legal minds of his day, and assigned them the task of systematizing a legal system that had been permitted to degenerate into chaos over some fairly rough centuries. In doing so, Justinian’s legal team looked back to the Lex Aquilia, a Roman property law from the year 286 B.C. – and beyond that to the Twelve Tables of 449 B.C., the foundational law of Rome. It would be as if a group of American law professors, seeking to reform the contemporary U.S. Code, looked back to England’s Magna Carta charter of the year 1215 – and then went even further back, to the laws of pre-Norman Conquest Britain from the year 1000 A.D. Justinian’s scholars were that thorough.
Translator C.F. Kolbert, a British lawyer and circuit judge as well as a Cambridge University scholar, provides a helpful explanation of certain key concepts that are essential for a modern reader’s understanding of the world within which the Corpus Iuris Civilis generally and the Digest specifically took shape. He spends a good deal of time, for example, on the concept of potestas (power). Kolbert explains that “The Roman head of a household…had potestas not only over his slaves, but also over his children, male and female” (p. 52), and that women were placed under perpetual tutelage, a sort of wardship. Getting used to the legal code of an empire that accepted slavery and the subjugation of women as everyday facts of life is not easy, and Kolbert does well at explaining the peculiarities of thinking that were at work in that time and place.
Kolbert’s command of these arcane Roman concepts helps the reader at a number of crucial points throughout the Digest. For example, Kolbert informs the reader that “The object of vindicatio was to recover property. Condictio was appropriate to recover the money value where the property was irrecoverable” (p. 189). One must be aware of that distinction in order to understand a passage from the Digest such as this one:
…[E]ven if I brought a vindicatio against the thief my right to recover by condictio remains, though it can be said to be within the competence of the judge…to hold the two cases together so that he can make an order for restitution only if the plaintiff abandons the condictio action. However, if the defendant has already had judgment given against him in the condictio and paid the amount assessed, the judge should either dismiss the vindicatio or…order him to pay the value as sworn under oath by the plaintiff. (p. 105)
Justinian’s legal scholars try to reason out every possible situation a Roman court might face relating to crimes like theft, robbery with violence, riotous assembly, insulting behavior, and scandalous libels. It may be for that reason that this Penguin Books edition of Justinian’s Digest, a 192-page extract from an infinitely larger whole, has the subtitle of Theft, Rapine, Damage, and Insult – a descriptor that sounds as though it could be the title for the next Quentin Tarantino movie.
And in the process, one sees how the Roman law of 534 A.D. influenced the development of British common law. When, for example, one of Justinian’s scholars writes that “if anyone enters another’s house against the owner’s will, even though his object be to summon him before a magistrate, he will be liable to an action for the insult” (p. 183), one hears, in that statement from Roman jurisprudence, echoes that resonate a long way in the history of British and American common law.
After all, any law student at Oxford or Harvard or McGill can tell you about English cases like Semayne’s Case (1604), in which Sir Edward Coke stated that “The house of every one is to him as his castle and fortress, as well for his defence against injury and violence as for his repose.” Or, to put it another way, A man’s home is his castle.
Cases like Semayne’s and Entick vs. Carrington (1705) enshrined the principle that a homeowner had certain rights that even the agents of a monarch could not simply set at naught – leading to William Pitt’s renowned declaration in 1763 that in the absence of a legitimate search warrant, “The poorest man may in his cottage bid defiance to all the force of the Crown. It may be frail…but the King of England cannot enter – all his force dares not cross the threshold of the ruined tenement.”
And in the United States of America – where the people of the young nation had had bitter experience, before the Revolutionary War, of British soldiers entering American homes without warrant – all of that legislation and legal thinking led directly to the 4th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution:
”The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”
Anytime an American lawyer pleading a case brings up the issue of probable cause, they are, whether consciously or not, invoking Justinian’s code.
From Rome to Constantinople to Great Britain to the U.S.A., that legacy of Roman law remains with us today – something that I think of whenever I drive by the U.S. Supreme Court building with its distinctly Roman architectural appearance. And anyone who wants to think about the contributions of Roman law to modern life – and to get a glimpse of daily life in the Roman Empire, away from all the assassinations and riots and wars and fires and sackings and volcanic eruptions – would do well to take up this edition of The Digest of Roman Law.
Justinian certainly kept busy; legal reform was only part of an amazingly eventful life. Six years before his birth in 482 A.D., the Western Roman Empire had already fallen; but the Eastern Roman Empire endured, and Justinian, although of ordinary birth, had the good fortune to be adopted by his uncle, the emperor Justin.
Succeeding his uncle as emperor in 527 A.D., Justinian set himself to the task of renovatio imperii, “restoration of the Empire,” and was more successful at the task than many observers of the time might have expected. By 540 A.D., Justinian’s top general, Belisarius, had reconquered once-Roman territories in Spain and North Africa. Justinian and Belisarius even brought all of the Italian-speaking lands back within the empire – the last time Italy would be politically unified under one government before the Risorgimento of 1871.
And just as Justinian sought to restore Rome’s broken empire, so he endeavoured to revitalize Rome’s legal code. Toward that end, the emperor brought together an all-star team of the best legal minds of his day, and assigned them the task of systematizing a legal system that had been permitted to degenerate into chaos over some fairly rough centuries. In doing so, Justinian’s legal team looked back to the Lex Aquilia, a Roman property law from the year 286 B.C. – and beyond that to the Twelve Tables of 449 B.C., the foundational law of Rome. It would be as if a group of American law professors, seeking to reform the contemporary U.S. Code, looked back to England’s Magna Carta charter of the year 1215 – and then went even further back, to the laws of pre-Norman Conquest Britain from the year 1000 A.D. Justinian’s scholars were that thorough.
Translator C.F. Kolbert, a British lawyer and circuit judge as well as a Cambridge University scholar, provides a helpful explanation of certain key concepts that are essential for a modern reader’s understanding of the world within which the Corpus Iuris Civilis generally and the Digest specifically took shape. He spends a good deal of time, for example, on the concept of potestas (power). Kolbert explains that “The Roman head of a household…had potestas not only over his slaves, but also over his children, male and female” (p. 52), and that women were placed under perpetual tutelage, a sort of wardship. Getting used to the legal code of an empire that accepted slavery and the subjugation of women as everyday facts of life is not easy, and Kolbert does well at explaining the peculiarities of thinking that were at work in that time and place.
Kolbert’s command of these arcane Roman concepts helps the reader at a number of crucial points throughout the Digest. For example, Kolbert informs the reader that “The object of vindicatio was to recover property. Condictio was appropriate to recover the money value where the property was irrecoverable” (p. 189). One must be aware of that distinction in order to understand a passage from the Digest such as this one:
…[E]ven if I brought a vindicatio against the thief my right to recover by condictio remains, though it can be said to be within the competence of the judge…to hold the two cases together so that he can make an order for restitution only if the plaintiff abandons the condictio action. However, if the defendant has already had judgment given against him in the condictio and paid the amount assessed, the judge should either dismiss the vindicatio or…order him to pay the value as sworn under oath by the plaintiff. (p. 105)
Justinian’s legal scholars try to reason out every possible situation a Roman court might face relating to crimes like theft, robbery with violence, riotous assembly, insulting behavior, and scandalous libels. It may be for that reason that this Penguin Books edition of Justinian’s Digest, a 192-page extract from an infinitely larger whole, has the subtitle of Theft, Rapine, Damage, and Insult – a descriptor that sounds as though it could be the title for the next Quentin Tarantino movie.
And in the process, one sees how the Roman law of 534 A.D. influenced the development of British common law. When, for example, one of Justinian’s scholars writes that “if anyone enters another’s house against the owner’s will, even though his object be to summon him before a magistrate, he will be liable to an action for the insult” (p. 183), one hears, in that statement from Roman jurisprudence, echoes that resonate a long way in the history of British and American common law.
After all, any law student at Oxford or Harvard or McGill can tell you about English cases like Semayne’s Case (1604), in which Sir Edward Coke stated that “The house of every one is to him as his castle and fortress, as well for his defence against injury and violence as for his repose.” Or, to put it another way, A man’s home is his castle.
Cases like Semayne’s and Entick vs. Carrington (1705) enshrined the principle that a homeowner had certain rights that even the agents of a monarch could not simply set at naught – leading to William Pitt’s renowned declaration in 1763 that in the absence of a legitimate search warrant, “The poorest man may in his cottage bid defiance to all the force of the Crown. It may be frail…but the King of England cannot enter – all his force dares not cross the threshold of the ruined tenement.”
And in the United States of America – where the people of the young nation had had bitter experience, before the Revolutionary War, of British soldiers entering American homes without warrant – all of that legislation and legal thinking led directly to the 4th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution:
”The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”
Anytime an American lawyer pleading a case brings up the issue of probable cause, they are, whether consciously or not, invoking Justinian’s code.
From Rome to Constantinople to Great Britain to the U.S.A., that legacy of Roman law remains with us today – something that I think of whenever I drive by the U.S. Supreme Court building with its distinctly Roman architectural appearance. And anyone who wants to think about the contributions of Roman law to modern life – and to get a glimpse of daily life in the Roman Empire, away from all the assassinations and riots and wars and fires and sackings and volcanic eruptions – would do well to take up this edition of The Digest of Roman Law.
December 3, 2013
It seems pretty silly to give this a rating, but it's got some good stuff. Like, if you go to a barber who has his chair set up where people are playing ball games and he accidentally kills you with a straight razor, it is your own fault if you die.
December 22, 2023
"Imperial majesty should not only be adorned with military might also by but also graced by laws."
The 'Corpus Iuris Civilis' is the name given to both a digest of civil law as well as to a large body of accompanying codified laws. The Digest, completed in 533, was compiled by sixteen legal experts who made use of a sprawling mass of legal writings by thirty nine jurists, who themselves were drawing upon a tradition reaching back thirteen centuries to even beyond the 12 Tablets of the early Republic.
Civil Law was less about conferring rights than it was about providing specific remedies for certain wrongs, of which there were four kinds: theft (furtum), damage (damnum iniuria datum), insult (iniuria) and robbery (rapina). The value here was in its clarity, orderliness and practical applicability.
And by reading the laws, a tapestry of everyday Roman life and concerns emerges; some, like the difficulties in finding a suitable punishment for a child, are still pertinent today:
"...a child can commit theft if he is old enough to be capable of dishonest intent; and moreover since a child can commit theft he can also be liable for unlawful damage too; but some limit must be set, so this rule does not apply to infants."
And some, like the many and varied laws concerning slaves, feel very much of another world:
"A runaway slave-girl is deemed to commit theft of herself; and she makes her child stolen property by handling it."
The 'Corpus Iuris Civilis' is the name given to both a digest of civil law as well as to a large body of accompanying codified laws. The Digest, completed in 533, was compiled by sixteen legal experts who made use of a sprawling mass of legal writings by thirty nine jurists, who themselves were drawing upon a tradition reaching back thirteen centuries to even beyond the 12 Tablets of the early Republic.
Civil Law was less about conferring rights than it was about providing specific remedies for certain wrongs, of which there were four kinds: theft (furtum), damage (damnum iniuria datum), insult (iniuria) and robbery (rapina). The value here was in its clarity, orderliness and practical applicability.
And by reading the laws, a tapestry of everyday Roman life and concerns emerges; some, like the difficulties in finding a suitable punishment for a child, are still pertinent today:
"...a child can commit theft if he is old enough to be capable of dishonest intent; and moreover since a child can commit theft he can also be liable for unlawful damage too; but some limit must be set, so this rule does not apply to infants."
And some, like the many and varied laws concerning slaves, feel very much of another world:
"A runaway slave-girl is deemed to commit theft of herself; and she makes her child stolen property by handling it."
June 10, 2020
This digest is incredibly important in its historical context as the foundation of all western legal canons. But the text itself is very dry and very much a reminder to me of my experience reading bits of the code of Hammurabi.
May 16, 2022
Justinian’s best-known work was as a codifier and legislator. He greatly stimulated legal studies, and in 528 he set up a commission to produce a new code of imperial enactments or constitutions, the Codex Constitutionum. This was published in 529, and in 530 a second commission sat to codify the Roman jurists; the work of this commission, known as the Digest (Digesta), appeared in 533. At the same time, a handbook for the use of law students, the Institutes (Institutiones), was prepared and published in 533. A second edition of the Code of Justinian containing Justinian’s own laws up to the date of issue was published in 534. His subsequent legislative work to 565 is known as the Novels (Novellae Constitutiones Post Codicem). Much of this legal activity was inspired and supervised by Tribonian, the emperor’s most important judicial minister.
Justinian was genuinely concerned with promoting the well-being of his subjects by rooting out corruption and providing easily accessible justice. This involved adequate control over provincial governors and some administrative reorganization. At the same time it was essential to provide revenue for Justinian’s various military campaigns, particularly in the West. Justinian knew how to pick his servants. He had two outstanding ministers. One was John of Cappadocia from Asia Minor, and the other was Peter Barsymes, a Syrian. John was praetorian prefect from 531 to 541, Peter from 543.
The first important reform was the prohibition of the suffragia, or sale of provincial governorships, in 535, for it was clear that new governors’ desire to recoup the heavy initial expense of purchasing their office accounted for much extortion inflicted by them upon the provincial populaces. Instructions were drawn up for provincial governors, and the position of the defensores civitatis, the officials whose duty it was to protect the cities, was strengthened and their jurisdiction widened so that provincials did not need to have the expense of going to the governor’s court. At the same time, there was a reorganization of the provincial system.
Strictly speaking, the works did not constitute a new legal code. Rather, Justinian’s committees of jurists provided basically two reference works containing collections of past laws and extracts of the opinions of the great Roman jurists. Also included were an elementary outline of the law and a collection of Justinian’s own new laws.
Justinian was genuinely concerned with promoting the well-being of his subjects by rooting out corruption and providing easily accessible justice. This involved adequate control over provincial governors and some administrative reorganization. At the same time it was essential to provide revenue for Justinian’s various military campaigns, particularly in the West. Justinian knew how to pick his servants. He had two outstanding ministers. One was John of Cappadocia from Asia Minor, and the other was Peter Barsymes, a Syrian. John was praetorian prefect from 531 to 541, Peter from 543.
The first important reform was the prohibition of the suffragia, or sale of provincial governorships, in 535, for it was clear that new governors’ desire to recoup the heavy initial expense of purchasing their office accounted for much extortion inflicted by them upon the provincial populaces. Instructions were drawn up for provincial governors, and the position of the defensores civitatis, the officials whose duty it was to protect the cities, was strengthened and their jurisdiction widened so that provincials did not need to have the expense of going to the governor’s court. At the same time, there was a reorganization of the provincial system.
Strictly speaking, the works did not constitute a new legal code. Rather, Justinian’s committees of jurists provided basically two reference works containing collections of past laws and extracts of the opinions of the great Roman jurists. Also included were an elementary outline of the law and a collection of Justinian’s own new laws.
July 15, 2025
I ordered this book because I wanted to see whether our values differ so much from the values of the Romans. I wanted to see what they see as right and wrong as I recently have come to believe that there is absolutely nothing inherently wrong or right. And this prassumoption after reading this book is absolutely correct!
Handling slaves as property and there was absolutely nothing wrong in having slaves or hitting them, if done for good and valid reasons. That shows me that the Romans saw slavery as an institute that wasn't wrong to have but mistreating slaves was frauned upon. Moreover, insulting was seen as a great crime. Insulting someone's wife or slave is considered a crime against the husband or the father of the family.
It's so interesting to see that the Romans went so in describing such specific details of situations and to see what's good or wrong in these situations. For example, if you're training with throwing javelins in an open field and a slave was passing by and it accidentally hit his eye under which law and which punishment should the person be punished or whether he needs to be punished.
I think we do such things until this day and that really shows me that rules and laws literally and absolutely literally are game rules just like board game rules. As life is more complex and there are more variables, people set many rules to decide what keeps the best order and in the West, to give a feeling that justice had been met.
I feel more people need to read books about laws and that will give people understanding why laws "don't work" sometimes and court cases are so complex and take such a long time. Because, apparently, it's extremely important to know exactly what happened and what the intentions of the people involved were.
That being said, this book is very tiring to read. Luckily I ordered the digest and not the whole Corpus Iuris Civilis as the initial plan was. It wasn't a walk in a park but something that's exhausting to read, even though it's a very thin book.
Moreover, the long ass introduction. Jesus Christ, when the real content started, I didn't know it was the digest or was the translator still doing his shtick. That cost it some stars.
Anyways, very influential book but not a small pill to swallow.
Handling slaves as property and there was absolutely nothing wrong in having slaves or hitting them, if done for good and valid reasons. That shows me that the Romans saw slavery as an institute that wasn't wrong to have but mistreating slaves was frauned upon. Moreover, insulting was seen as a great crime. Insulting someone's wife or slave is considered a crime against the husband or the father of the family.
It's so interesting to see that the Romans went so in describing such specific details of situations and to see what's good or wrong in these situations. For example, if you're training with throwing javelins in an open field and a slave was passing by and it accidentally hit his eye under which law and which punishment should the person be punished or whether he needs to be punished.
I think we do such things until this day and that really shows me that rules and laws literally and absolutely literally are game rules just like board game rules. As life is more complex and there are more variables, people set many rules to decide what keeps the best order and in the West, to give a feeling that justice had been met.
I feel more people need to read books about laws and that will give people understanding why laws "don't work" sometimes and court cases are so complex and take such a long time. Because, apparently, it's extremely important to know exactly what happened and what the intentions of the people involved were.
That being said, this book is very tiring to read. Luckily I ordered the digest and not the whole Corpus Iuris Civilis as the initial plan was. It wasn't a walk in a park but something that's exhausting to read, even though it's a very thin book.
Moreover, the long ass introduction. Jesus Christ, when the real content started, I didn't know it was the digest or was the translator still doing his shtick. That cost it some stars.
Anyways, very influential book but not a small pill to swallow.
Currently reading
September 1, 2025I’m enjoying reading this book, as it has insights into the laws of today, which have their origins in the laws created by and considerations of, the jurists of The Republic and later Imperial Rome, ‘usucapio’ being just one of the interesting legal concepts explained. I look forward to completing it and increasing my knowledge in what for me, is a somewhat convoluted subject, despite my previous involvement in criminal and civil law.
My one negative at this point of Kolbert’s translation, is that whilst he is an eminent scholar and practitioner in the subject, totally familiar with the terms and language of Ancient Rome and also present practice, he has omitted to include a simple reference appendix at the back of the book that explains in simplified detail the Latin terms used, some of which he inadvertently expects the lay reader to understand without explanation, or doesn’t reiterate for clarity and quick reference by the seasoned users of the term. This would be a good addition for any reprint being contemplated.
My one negative at this point of Kolbert’s translation, is that whilst he is an eminent scholar and practitioner in the subject, totally familiar with the terms and language of Ancient Rome and also present practice, he has omitted to include a simple reference appendix at the back of the book that explains in simplified detail the Latin terms used, some of which he inadvertently expects the lay reader to understand without explanation, or doesn’t reiterate for clarity and quick reference by the seasoned users of the term. This would be a good addition for any reprint being contemplated.
April 2, 2023
This was a legal framework that documented much of the conflicts in that society and how the judgements and rational were done to achieve what was just related to theft, rapine, damage and insult. It is really detailed to the most simple actions that derived in some sort of conflict between the parts.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
March 15, 2017
The Roman Empire was immense and expansive, covering multiple continents and centuries. How did it flourish so successfully? To reach out so far it had to be strong within, and that is where works like this become so fascinating, as they give you an inside look into the workings of the empire. Justinian's Codex of law covers a wide array of situations in which the law comes into question. Each time, you get a brief snippet, a snapshot of what day to day life was like in Ancient Rome and how its citizens lived and struggled.
What struck me most is how detailed some of the laws are and also how seemingly calm and humane the Romans were in treating each other, despite their savage and brutal conquest of their enemies. Slaves also did not have it so great, and that becomes clear in this work.
Again, the best thing a student of Ancient Roman civilization can take from this is the context it provides to life in the empire based on the laws its citizens governed themselves by. There are not many things as telling of a civilization's inner workings.
Recommended for fans of the Classics, Ancient Rome, etc...
What struck me most is how detailed some of the laws are and also how seemingly calm and humane the Romans were in treating each other, despite their savage and brutal conquest of their enemies. Slaves also did not have it so great, and that becomes clear in this work.
Again, the best thing a student of Ancient Roman civilization can take from this is the context it provides to life in the empire based on the laws its citizens governed themselves by. There are not many things as telling of a civilization's inner workings.
Recommended for fans of the Classics, Ancient Rome, etc...
February 15, 2024
Fascinating originally documents with commentary detailing the legal system of the Roman Empire. .
March 1, 2015
Had I only read this book before I became an attorney, I would have saved myself from a disappointing career choice. It gives a broad background to some torts, explains the reasons for causes of action and is otherwise so underwhelming that it causes a deeper sleep in the comatose. Half of this book is dedicated to obtaining satisfaction when a slave is involved in some event. Really? He could have thought that the editors would insist on other areas that are not so antiquated. Boring in the extreme. Run away from this book. And, BTW, Justinian just ordered the legal authorities to put various compilations of the laws into a digest. He was not the author of anything.
August 1, 2016
Got this book for roman law class in my undergrad years, where I didn't read the book.
Then when I was looking for history books to read, found this and started reading the introduction.
The actual writings of the book (the laws) are fine just skimming through; it's the introduction and other writings by C. F. Kolbert that's more important, since the context and history of this book is far more important and digestible than the laws themselves.
So read the first pages of the book before jumping straight to the laws.
Then when I was looking for history books to read, found this and started reading the introduction.
The actual writings of the book (the laws) are fine just skimming through; it's the introduction and other writings by C. F. Kolbert that's more important, since the context and history of this book is far more important and digestible than the laws themselves.
So read the first pages of the book before jumping straight to the laws.
September 6, 2012
Good introduction to law theory.
Currently reading
November 28, 2014vječno
February 4, 2016
I love Roman history but this isn't exactly a page turner. I read it for a Roman law class but wouldn't exactly recommend it for pleasure reading.
September 15, 2016
Very informative, but boring and hard to follow at times.
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September 23, 2010"The Digest of Roman Law: Theft, Rapine, Damage, and Insult (Penguin Classics) by Justinian (1979)"
Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews