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Roman law is the legal system of both the Roman Republic and the Roman Empire, from its earliest days to the time of the Eastern Roman Empire, even to the time of the Emperor Justinian I after the fall of Rome itself. Roman law is the foundation of many legal systems of the world.
- So-called Civil law systems, by contrast, are more directly based on Roman law. The legal systems of most countries in continental EuropeFor the band of the same name, see Europe (band . Europe is a continent forming the westermost part of the Eurasian supercontinent. Europe is bounded to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the west by the Atlantic Ocean, to the south by the Mediterranean Se and South AmericaSouth America is a continent crossed by the equator, with most of its area in the Southern Hemisphere. South America is situated between the Pacific Ocean and the Atlantic Ocean. It became attached to North America only recently, geologically speaking, wi fall into this category, frequently through the Napoleonic Code. These are sometimes called Latin systems (or "operating jure latino").
Roman law has its beginnings in the code known as the Twelve TablesThe Law of the Twelve Tables Lex Duodecim Tabularum more informally simply Duodecim Tabulae were the ancient legislation that stood at the foundation of Roman law. The Law of the Twelve Tables formed the centrepiece of the constitution of the Roman Republ ( 449 BCCenturies: 6th century BC 5th century BC 4th century BC Decades: 490s BC 480s BC 470s BC 460s BC 450s BC 440s BC 430s BC 420s BC 410s BC 400s BC 390s BC 454 BC 453 BC 452 BC 451 BC 450 BC 449 BC 448 BC 447 BC 446 BC 445 BC 444 BC Events The Peace of Calli). From there Roman law became highly advanced for its time, developing over the centuries many of the legal institutions that are taken for granted today.
For example, it was Roman law that developed the differentiation between contractA contract is any promise or set of promises made by one party to another for the breach of which the law provides a remedy. The promise or promises may be express (either written or oral) or may be implied from circumstances. Typically, the remedy for br and tortIn the common law, a tort is a civil wrong for which the law provides a remedy. The term comes from Law French and means, literally, 'a wrong'. The "law of torts" is a body of civil law or private law that covers the various legal ( money damages) and equ; previously (as in ancient Greek law), contract violations were simply a kind of tort. Also, the differentiation between possessionPossession is having some degree of control over something else. A person may be in possession of some property (although possession does not always imply ownership); a spirit may be in possession of a person. Like ownership, the possession of things is c (which is a factual state: someone has something) and property (which is a right; later formulated as the right to do whatever one wishes with something) was developed in Roman law, most visible in the rei vindicatio, the action of the owner against the possessor to release a piece of property. Finally, the origins of today's concept that contracts are valid when there is a meeting of the minds can be found in the Roman rules about credits, which could be freely agreed on and were called stipulatio.
Roman law also developed the concepts of one law for the citizens and another law for foreigners – the beginnings of private international law.
Roman law also speaks volumes of the Roman mindset in general. Praetorial intervention ensured that the law could adapt to the changing needs of a rapidly expanding empire. This was achieved, however, under the guise of consistency and attachment to traditional values. The Praetor "changed" the law not by rewriting but by offering new remedies to cope with new problems. This attachment to the past and suspicion of change is arguably characteristic of Roman thinking.
The Emperor Justinian arranged for the re-organisation of most of Roman law in his Codex and his Pandectae, a fifty book set which took three years to compile and was completed in 533. The Emperor also ordered the production of a textbook, Iustiniani Institutiones (the Justinian teaching manual), during the early 530s. It was intended as an overview of Roman law for legal students and consisted of just four books. They were granted the force of law, an unusual distinction for a textbook. Justinian's work was completed by Pandectae (or Digesto), Institutiones and Codex are part of the Corpus Juris Civilis. This has been called the most influential law work ever written as it has been on the reading list for legal students in countries using Civil law for nearly 1500 years so far.
