Ulpian (; la, Gnaeus Domitius Annius Ulpianus; c. 170223? 228?) was a

Roman Roman or Romans most often refers to: *Rome, the capital city of Italy *Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD *Roman people, the people of ancient Rome *'' Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a lette ...

jurist born in Tyre. He was considered one of the great legal authorities of his time and was one of the five jurists upon whom decisions were to be based according to the

Law of Citations The Law of Citations (''Lex citationum'') was a Roman law issued from Ravenna in AD 426 by the emperor Valentinian III, or rather by his regent mother, Galla Placidia Augusta, to the Senate and the people of Rome, and it included in both Theodosiu ...

Valentinian III Valentinian III ( la, Placidus Valentinianus; 2 July 41916 March 455) was Roman emperor in the West from 425 to 455. Made emperor in childhood, his reign over the Roman Empire was one of the longest, but was dominated by powerful generals vying ...

Biography

The exact time and place of his birth are unknown, but the period of his literary activity was between AD 211 and 222. He made his first appearance in public life as assessor in the auditorium of Papinian and member of the council of

Septimius Severus Lucius Septimius Severus (; 11 April 145 – 4 February 211) was Roman emperor from 193 to 211. He was born in Leptis Magna (present-day Al-Khums, Libya) in the Roman province of Africa. As a young man he advanced through the customary suc ...

; under

Caracalla Marcus Aurelius Antoninus (born Lucius Septimius Bassianus, 4 April 188 – 8 April 217), better known by his nickname "Caracalla" () was Roman emperor from 198 to 217. He was a member of the Severan dynasty, the elder son of Emperor S ...

he was master of the requests (''magister libellorum'').

Elagabalus Marcus Aurelius Antoninus (born Sextus Varius Avitus Bassianus, 204 – 11/12 March 222), better known by his nickname "Elagabalus" (, ), was Roman emperor from 218 to 222, while he was still a teenager. His short reign was conspicuous for s ...

(also known as Heliogabalus) banished him from

Rome , established_title = Founded , established_date = 753 BC , founder = King Romulus (legendary) , image_map = Map of comune of Rome (metropolitan city of Capital Rome, region Lazio, Italy).svg , map_caption ...

, but on the accession of Alexander Severus, Severus Alexander (222) he was reinstated, and finally became the emperor's chief adviser and ''Praetorian prefect, Praefectus Praetorio''. During the Severan dynasty, the position of Praetorian prefect in Italy came increasingly to resemble a general administrative post, and there was a tendency to appoint jurists such as Papinian, who occupied the post from 203 until his elimination and execution at the ascent of Caracalla. Under Severus Alexander the Praetorian prefecture was held by Ulpian until his assassination by the Praetorian Guard, Guard in the presence of the Emperor himself. His curtailment of the privileges granted to the Praetorian Guard by

provoked their enmity, and he narrowly escaped their vengeance; ultimately he was murdered in the palace by the Guard, possibly in the course of a riot between the soldiers and the mob.

Works

His works include ''Ad Sabinum'', a commentary on the ''ius civile'', in over 50 books; ''Ad edictum'', a commentary on the ''Edict'', in 83 books; collections of opinions, responses and disputations; books of rules and institutions; treatises on the functions of the different magistrates — one of them, the ''De officio proconsulis libri x.'', being a comprehensive exposition of the criminal law; monographs on various statutes, on testamentary trusts, and a variety of other works. His writings altogether have supplied to Justinian I, Justinian's ''Digest (Roman law), Digest'' about a third of its contents, and his commentary on the ''Edict'' alone about a fifth. As an author, he is characterized by doctrinal exposition of a high order, judiciousness of criticism, and lucidity of arrangement, style, and language. He is also credited with Ulpian's life table, the first life table ever. ''Domitii Ulpiani fragmenta'', consisting of 29 titles, were first edited by Tilius (Paris, 1549). Other editions are by Gustav von Hugo, Hugo (Berlin, 1834), Booking (Bonn, 1836), containing fragments of the first book of the ''Institutiones'' discovered by Endlicher at Vienna in 1835, and in Girard's ''Textes de droit romain'' (Paris, 1890).

Legacy

It had been assumed for a long time that Ulpian of Tyre was a model for Athenaeus' Ulpian in ''Deipnosophistae, The Deipnosophists'' — or ''The Banquet of the Learned''. Athenaeus makes 'Ulpian' out to be a grammarian and philologist, characterised by his customary interjections: "Where does this word occur in writing?". He is represented as a wiktionary:symposiarch, symposiarch and he occupies a couch alone; his death is passed over in silence in Book XV 686c. Scholars today agree that Athenaeus's Ulpian is not the historical Ulpian, but possibly his father. A potential date of the real Ulpian's death, 228 AD, has been wrongly used to estimate the date of completion of ''The Deipnosophists''. However the year of his death cannot be determined with certainty. Robert Lee Cleve makes a compelling case that Ulpian died in 223, citing a papyrus discovered in 1966. In the study of law, he is mostly remembered for the phrase "''Juris praecepta sunt haec: honeste vivere, alterum non laedere, suum cuique tribuere'' (The basic principles of law are: to live honorably, not to harm any other person, to render each his own)".Justinian, Digest (Roman law), Digest 1.1.10, in

Notes

References

* Tony Honoré, ''Ulpian: Pioneer of Human Rights'', Oxford University Press, 2002.

External links