This is a partial list of Roman laws. A

Roman law Roman law is the law, legal system of ancient Rome, including the legal developments spanning over a thousand years of jurisprudence, from the Twelve Tables (), to the (AD 529) ordered by Eastern Roman emperor Justinian I. Roman law also den ...

() is usually named for the sponsoring legislator and designated by the adjectival form of his ''

gens In ancient Rome, a gens ( or , ; : gentes ) was a family consisting of individuals who shared the same ''nomen gentilicium'' and who claimed descent from a common ancestor. A branch of a gens, sometimes identified by a distinct cognomen, was cal ...

'' name ('' nomen gentilicum''), in the feminine form because the

noun In grammar, a noun is a word that represents a concrete or abstract thing, like living creatures, places, actions, qualities, states of existence, and ideas. A noun may serve as an Object (grammar), object or Subject (grammar), subject within a p ...

''lex'' (plural ''leges'') is of feminine grammatical gender. When a law is the initiative of the two

consul Consul (abbrev. ''cos.''; Latin plural ''consules'') was the title of one of the two chief magistrates of the Roman Republic, and subsequently also an important title under the Roman Empire. The title was used in other European city-states thro ...

s, it is given the name of both, with the ''nomen'' of the senior consul first. Sometimes a law is further specified by a short phrase describing the content of the law, to distinguish that law from others sponsored by members of the same ''gens''.

Roman laws

Post-Roman law codes based on Roman legislation

*'' lex Romana Burgundionum'' one of the law tables for Romans after the fall of the Western Roman Empire *'' lex Romana Visigothorum'' (506 AD) one of the law tables for Romans after the fall of the Western Roman Empire

General denominations

*''

lex agraria A (: ) was a Roman law which dealt primarily with the viritane allotment of public lands. Such laws came largely from two sources: the disposition of lands annexed by Rome in consequence of expansion and the distribution of existing public lands ...

'' A law regulating distribution of public lands *'' lex annalis'' A law regarding qualifications for magistracies, such as age or experience *'' lex ambitus'' A law involving electoral bribery and corruption; see '' ambitus'' *''lex curiata'' Any law passed by the '' comitia curiata''. These included Roman adoptions, particularly so-called "testamentary adoptions" (famously in 59 BC when the patrician Clodius Pulcher was adopted into a

plebeian In ancient Rome, the plebeians or plebs were the general body of free Roman citizens who were not patricians, as determined by the census, or in other words "commoners". Both classes were hereditary. Etymology The precise origins of the gro ...

'' in order to run for the office of tribune of the ''plebs'') and the '' lex curiata de imperio'' which granted ''imperium'' to senior Roman magistrates under the Republic, likely also ratifying the choice of a new king during the monarchy. It was the traditional basis for the later lex de Imperio allowing imperial succession. *'' lex frumentaria'' A law regulating the price of

grain A grain is a small, hard, dry fruit (caryopsis) – with or without an attached husk, hull layer – harvested for human or animal consumption. A grain crop is a grain-producing plant. The two main types of commercial grain crops are cereals and ...

*'' lex sumptuaria'' A law regulating the use of luxury items and public manifestations of wealth

Other

*''

Constitution of the Roman Republic The constitution of the Roman Republic was a set of Uncodified constitution, uncodified norms and customs which, together with various Roman law, written laws, guided the procedural governance of the Roman Republic. The constitution emerged from ...

'' Set the separation of powers and checks and balances of the Roman Republic *'' Acceptilatio'' spoken statement of debt or obligation release *''

Constitutio Antoniniana The (Latin for "Constitution r Edictof Antoninus"), also called the Edict of Caracalla or the Antonine Constitution, was an edict issued in AD 212 by the Roman emperor Caracalla. It declared that all free men in the Roman Empire were to be ...

'' granted citizenship to the Empire's freemen *'' Corpus Iuris Civilis'' codification by emperor

Justinian Justinian I (, ; 48214 November 565), also known as Justinian the Great, was Roman emperor from 527 to 565. His reign was marked by the ambitious but only partly realized ''renovatio imperii'', or "restoration of the Empire". This ambition was ...

* ''Syro-Roman law book''a compilation of secular legal texts from the

eastern Roman Empire The Byzantine Empire, also known as the Eastern Roman Empire, was the continuation of the Roman Empire centred on Constantinople during late antiquity and the Middle Ages. Having survived the events that caused the fall of the Western Roman E ...

*'' Stipulatio'' basic oral

contract A contract is an agreement that specifies certain legally enforceable rights and obligations pertaining to two or more parties. A contract typically involves consent to transfer of goods, services, money, or promise to transfer any of thos ...

*''

Twelve Tables The Laws of the Twelve Tables () was the legislation that stood at the foundation of Roman law. Formally promulgated in 449 BC, the Tables consolidated earlier traditions into an enduring set of laws.Crawford, M.H. 'Twelve Tables' in Simon Hornbl ...

'' The first set of Roman laws published by the ''

Decemviri The decemviri or decemvirs (Latin for "ten men") refer to official ten-man commissions established by the Roman Republic. The most important were those of the two decemvirates, formally the decemvirate with consular power for writing laws () w ...

'' in 451 BC, which would be the starting point of the elaborate Roman constitution. The twelve tables covered issues of civil, criminal and military law. Every Roman that went to school was supposed to know them by heart. * ''Licinio-Sextian rogations'' series of laws proposed by tribunes of the plebs, Gaius Licinius Stolo and Lucius Sextius Lateranus, enacted around 367 BC.

References

Bibliography

* Brennan, T. Corey, ''The Praetorship in the Roman Republic'', Oxford University Press, 2000. * François Hinard, ''Les proscriptions de la Rome républicaine'', Rome, Ecole française de Rome, 1985. * ——, ''Rome, la dernière république, Recueil d'articles de François Hinard, textes réunis et présentés par Estelle Bertrand'', Ausonius, Pessac, 2011. * Gesine Manuwald, ''Cicero, Philippics 3–9, Volume 1: Introduction, Text and Translation, References and Indexes'', Berlin/New York, De Gruyter, 2007. *

Ronald Syme Sir Ronald Syme, (11 March 1903 – 4 September 1989) was a New Zealand-born historian and classicist. He was regarded as the greatest historian of ancient Rome since Theodor Mommsen and the most brilliant exponent of the history of the Roma ...

,
Ten Tribunes
, ''The Journal of Roman Studies'', 1963, Vol. 53, Parts 1 and 2 (1963), pp. 55–60. * Walbank, F. W., et al., ''The Cambridge Ancient History, vol. VII, part 2, The Rise of Rome to 220 BC'', Cambridge University Press (1989).

External links

* * {{Ancient Rome topics *

Laws Law is a set of rules that are created and are law enforcement, enforceable by social or governmental institutions to regulate behavior, with its precise definition a matter of longstanding debate. It has been variously described as a Socia ...

Roman laws