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herciscere, prendere and prehendere, diminuere and deminuere, parentum and parentium, vulgo and volgo, apud and aput, sed and set, proxumus and proximus, affectus and adfectus, inponere and imponere, &c. Some irregularities likely to embarrass the reader, e.g. the substitution of v for b in debitor and probare, the substitution of b for v in servus and vitium, have been tacitly corrected. The numeration of the paragraphs was introduced by Goeschen in his first edition of Gaius, and for convenience of reference has been retained by all subsequent editors. The rubrics or titles marking the larger divisions of the subject, with the exception of a few at the beginning, are not found in the Veronese MS. Those that are found are not very apposite, and are supposed not to be the work of Gaius, but of a transcriber. To distinguish them from the others they are accompanied with a translation. The remainder are of my own invention, or are taken from the corresponding sections of Justinian's Institutes.

The present edition is partly addressed to law students who desire to prepare themselves for the intelligent appreciation of the laws of their own country by an acquaintance with the only other system of legal conceptions known to the world, and partly to those not destined to the legal profession who consider some initiation in the principles of jurisprudence as an essential part of a liberal education.

The text is accompanied with a translation which, though principally intended for those who profess little knowledge of Latin, it is hoped may be found useful even to advanced scholars unfamiliar with the conceptions and language of Roman jurisprudence.

The commentary, notwithstanding an anxiety not to alarm the student by its dimensions, occasionally refers to corresponding institutions, like or unlike, of English jurisprudence. The scruples against swelling the bulk of the work by this course were overcome by the conviction that besides being a ready mode of interpreting what might be enigmatic, the citation of likenesses or contrasts from an independent legislation would, if psychologists say truly, be rather an assistance to the memory than a burden.

An elementary treatise can scarcely make any profession of originality. I have availed myself of lights wherever I could obtain them. And, not to crowd the following pages with references to the writers to whom I am indebted, I must here once for all acknowledge my obligation, not to mention many authors from

whom I have borrowed isolated views or quotations, to Austin's Lectures on Jurisprudence, to Ortolan's elegant and lucid commentary on the Institutes of Justinian, to Puchta's learned Cursus der Institutionen, and above all to the various writings of Von Savigny, a rival of the brightest names of the golden period of Roman jurisprudence.

As the Institutions of Gaius were intended to be an introductory initiation in Roman law, I have not thought it necessary to write an introduction to an introduction; but to the student who is making his first acquaintance with the subject I would give the following advice. He may find his labours lightened and his path made easier if he studies the various divisions of the Institutions of Gaius in the following order. He will do well (on the teleological principle that the Beginning is explained by the End) to begin with Procedure (Actiones, Book IV), the final manifestation and application of the rules of Substantive law: to proceed to Obligations (388-§ 225), the rules of which appeal to the common sense of mankind, and are the most cosmopolitan part of the code : and from thence to the modes of acquiring Ownership, 2 § 1-§ 96. The arbitrary and local, but proportionately curious and picturesque, law of Persons (Book I) may next be studied. The law of Wills (2 § 97-§ 289), somewhat formidable from its dimensions but tolerably clear in its details, may follow. The law of Intestate succession, obscure in parts and not very interesting nor necessary to the understanding of other portions, may be left to the last.

CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE.

B.C. 753.

Foundation of Rome.

Institution

578-535. Servius Tullius. Division into thirty Tribes.
of Comitia Tributa, Census, Comitia Centuriata.

494.

451.

First secession of the Plebs. Appointment of Tribunes of the Plebs.

Laws of the Ten Tables promulgated.

450-449. Two additional Tables of Laws. The Patricians incorporated in the local Tribes. Lex Valeria Horatia gives legislative power to Comitia Tributa.

366.

339.

326.

312.

287.

First appointment of a Praetor.

Q. Publilius Philo, Dictator, abolishes the veto of the Comitia
Centuriata on the legislative measures of the Comitia
Tributa.

Partial abolition of Nexum.

Cnaeus Flavius publishes a calendar of Dies Fasti and
Nefasti.

Last secession of the Plebs.

Q. Hortensius, Dictator,

abolishes the veto of the Senate on the legislative measures

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90.

89.

27.

Lex Julia confers the franchise on all the Latins.

The franchise granted to all the confederate towns of Italy, and the Latin franchise to the Transpadani.

Octavianus receives the titles of Augustus and Imperator.

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