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        Roman law refers to the legal system that originated in ancient
        Rome and that later became the basis of law in Western Europe and
        in countries influenced by European legal codes.

        Origins.

        Roman law had its origins, long before there was a Roman state, in
        family customs handed down from one generation to another and in
        judgments (leges regiae) of chieftains or kings. By the time of the
        establishment of the Roman Republic (509 BC) a considerable amount
        of this customary law existed. It was not written but oral law,
        however, in the keeping of the most ancient patrician families
        (gentes), and this meant that the common people (plebeians) were
        at a disadvantage in disputes. Years of agitation ended with the
        appointment of a commission (decemviri legibus scribundis, or
        twelve legal experts) that collected and published the oral customs
        in Rome's first codification, The Twelve Tables (451-450 BC). These
        dealt mainly with problems related to property and to the
        procedures for obtaining redress for wrongs.

        The Twelve Tables were enacted as statutes by one of the Roman
        governmental assemblies (the COMITIA CENTURIATA), and occasionally
        thereafter statutes were enacted by other legislative bodies. But
        the great expansion of law under the republic came from two other
        sources: jurisconsults and praetors. The jurisconsults were
        prominent citizens who found the study and interpretation of the
        law a satisfying and respected pursuit. Since early statutes
        coincided with the very beginning of writing in Rome, the language
        was sparing and often needed elaboration. The jurisconsults had
        great prestige, and they were regularly consulted by officials and
        laymen alike.

        With the establishment of the principate (27 BC) the first emperor,
        Augustus, gave certain jurisconsults the authority to issue
        responses to legal queries as though he himself had been asked, a
        practice that continued under later emperors. The praetors were
        annually elected magistrates whose duties included the
        administration of the law courts. They too were faced with
        uncertainties or omissions in statutory law, and thus each made it
        a practice to publish before entering office an edict that stated
        under what circumstances he would grant a suit. This edict was good
        only for his year of office, but successors regularly consulted the
        previous edict and kept of it what had proved equitable and
        popular, discarding portions that had been less so. By this method
        a vast amount of practical and equitable law accumulated,
        introduced experimentally and tested on the increasingly
        complicated problems of an expanding commercial state. As the
        powers of the emperors and bureaucratic officials increased and
        those of elected officials declined, however, praetors showed less
        initiative; in the early 2d century AD, Emperor Hadrian had
        praetorian edicts drawn up by a jurist and codified. This
        standardized edict then became the subject of study and commentary
        by jurists, whose writing furnished much of later Roman law.

        The emperor, as a magistrate, also had the right to issue edicts
        on legal affairs. But unlike that of the republican magistrates his
        power was lifelong, so that his edicts were effective for a
        considerable time. Further, succeeding emperors usually observed
        the enactments of their predecessors. The emperors depended a good
        deal on the advice of eminent jurists and, especially in the early
        principate, asked for the concurrence of the Senate, a body of
        elder statesmen who advised the magistrates. The concurrence of the
        Senate eventually became a matter of course; enactments by the
        emperors became the only source of law. Under the authority of the
        Eastern Roman (Byzantine) emperor JUSTINIAN I, select committees
        directed by the jurist Tribonian collected, edited, and organized
        (AD 528-34) the scattered and sometimes contradictory legal
        materials from all these sources and published them as the Corpus
        Juris Civilis (Body of Civil Law), which is the form in which most
        Roman law has come down to us (see JUSTINIAN's CODE).

        Traditionally, the study of Roman law is divided into five parts:
        the laws of persons, of property, of succession, of obligations,
        and of actions.

        The Law of Persons.

        In early Roman law it was especially important to establish one's
        status--free or slave, citizen or alien, male or female, parent or
        child, and so on--because only then could legal rights and duties
        be determined. At first it was status in respect to the family that
        was most important. But as Roman jurists came into contact with
        other cultures or fell under the influence of Greek philosophy
        status based on birth gave way in importance to contractual
        relations. The Romans also created the juristic person or
        corporation, a fictitious person endowed by the state with the
        rights of natural persons.

        The Law of Property.

        Property law defined what items could and could not be owned by
        individuals, described the methods of acquisition and transfer that
        the legal system would recognize and defend, and noted the extent
        to which one person's rights in property might be modified or
        limited by the claims of another individual.

        The Law of Succession.

        The law of succession treated, in cases of intestacy, the passage
        of property to heirs whose rights depended on their relationship
        to the deceased. It also regulated the making of wills. As the
        Roman sense of equity and humanity developed, the right of a
        testator completely to disregard natural heirs was severely
        limited.

        The Law of Obligations.

        The law of obligations concerned the rights and duties that rose
        from commercial pursuits or contracts and also from a number of
        illegal acts--torts or delicts--which obliged the offender to
        recompense the injured person.

        The Law of Actions.

        The law of actions contained the procedures to be followed in
        disputes. It evolved from a considerable dependence on self-help
        by the plaintiff in the earliest days to an almost complete
        dependence, from summons to execution, on the state.

        Influence of Roman Law.

        By the time of Justinian most of Western Europe was in the hands
        of barbarian kings who administered a mixture of their own GERMANIC
        LAW and earlier Roman law. But in the 11th century Italian scholars
        rediscovered and began to study and teach the Corpus Juris Civilis.
        This happened at the very time that expanding trade and commercial
        activity made the law of a universal state more appropriate than
        any other. Thus Roman law became the basis of the law of all
        Western Europe, with the exception of England (see CIVIL LAW;
        COMMON LAW).

        It spread to the New World and is basic in South and Central
        America, Louisiana, and Quebec; it was adopted in South Africa and
        Sri Lanka and plays a role in the codes of emerging states. Through
        Byzantium it reached Russia, and still furnishes the law for
        fungibles in the USSR. The Roman jus gentium (law of the peoples),
        developed in the republic to govern relations with non-Romans,
        became the basis of much of modern commercial law.