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a committee with making an anthology of the classical Roman lawyers. To
crown his achievement, Justinian decreed a manual of law compulsory for
all legal education. His Institutes are written using Gaius' Institutes. The
Justinian codification was the starting point for the new study, renewal and
revival of Roman law during the Middle Ages.

The structure, character and content of Roman law
Roman law is first and foremost private law, law of and between
citizens. In relation to it public law and the law of nations are less
important. Roman law is concerned with the relationships between people,
their legal actions, and the right they have on goods. Legal persons were in
particular the fathers of families, the proverbal pater familias. They held
great power over their wives, children and slaves. An important element is
the law of procedure. The archaic Roman law was characterized by a lot of
ritualized legal formulae to which one had to stick as close as possible. In
a later phase one is able to choose one or more legal actions, a matter
which called for interpretation: which action? Parties ruled their conflicts
themselves. A judge only appeared in a final phase of the case. For
centuries there were no courts. In the great public trials, like the ones in
which Cicero became famous, his role was more akin to that of an orator
than to the role of a modern solicitor.
Roman law is remarkable for the detailed yet succinct way one
treated cases. One looked principally at things by dealing with concrete or
imaginary cases. This casuistic aspect is more important than any
systematic view. One did not write a theory of damage, but about a car
hitting someone on the Capitol. Of course one has tried to systematize
Roman law. The great Roman lawyers treated all kind of cases when
writing on several subjects or commenting the edict of the praetor. The
real heart of Roman law was hereditary law. Apart from legal procedure,
family law, the law of goods, and the law of obligations are the other main
areas. The juridical content and level of Roman law is of such a quality
that it has deeply influenced directly and indirectly lawyers of all times
and places. It brought with it a great prestige because of Roman history.

Task 3. Answer the following questions.
1. What is the first known source of Roman law?
2. Who governed Rome after the period of the kings?

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