Law and Empire in Late Antiquity

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Cambridge University Press, Oct 11, 2001 - History - 246 pages
This is the first systematic treatment in English by an historian of the nature, aims and efficacy of public law in late imperial Roman society from the third to the fifth century AD. Adopting an interdisciplinary approach, and using the writings of lawyers and legal anthropologists, as well as those of historians, the book offers new interpretations of central questions: What was the law of late antiquity? How efficacious was late Roman law? What were contemporary attitudes to pain, and the function of punishment? Was the judicial system corrupt? How were disputes settled? Law is analysed as an evolving discipline, within a framework of principles by which even the emperor was bound. While law, through its language, was an expression of imperial power, it was also a means of communication between emperor and subject, and was used by citizens, poor as well as rich, to serve their own ends.

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Contents

Introduction
1
The law of Late Antiquity
6
Confusion and ambiguities? The legal heritage
8
Hadrian and the jurists
14
the emperor and the law
19
Rescripts as law
26
Custom and desuetude
31
Making the law
36
The hearing
107
Appellatio
110
Symmachus as Prefect 384 CE
114
Crime and the problem of pain
118
Accusation
119
Quaestio
122
Punishment
135
The justifications of punishment
144

In consistory
38
the imperial quaestor
42
Suggestio
47
Judges and courts
53
The construction of authority
56
the Theodosian Code
59
Acclamation and response
65
the authority of the written word
70
The efficacy of law
77
law and time
82
law and place
88
Enforcement
93
Efficacy and accountability
96
In court
99
Denuntiatio or editio
104
The corrupt judge
153
Ininrin indids
158
The liability of the judge
161
Gratia
163
The accountability of the index
167
Dispute settlement I out of court
172
Arbitration
175
Petitions and disputes
184
Negotiation
187
Dispute settlement II episcopalis audientia
191
Conclusion
212
Bibliography
217
Index
227
Copyright

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About the author (2001)

Jill Harries is Professor of Ancient History at the University of St Andrews. She is the author of Sidonius Apollinaris and the Fall of Rome (1994) and, with Brian Croke, of Religious Conflict in Fourth-Century Rome (1982). She is co-editor, with Ian Wood, of The Theodosian Code: Studies in the Imperial Law of Late Antiquity (1993) and, with Michael Austin and Christopher Smith, of Modus Operandi: Essays in Honour of Geoffrey Rickman (1998).

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