Roman law is the legal system of ancient Rome, including the legal developments spanning over a thousand years of jurisprudence, from the Twelve Tables, to the Corpus Juris Civilis ordered by Eastern Roman emperor Justinian I. Roman law forms the basic framework for civil law, the most widely used legal system today, and the terms are sometimes used synonymously. The historical importance of Roman law is reflected by the continued use of Latin legal terminology in many legal systems influenced by it, including common law.
Year 212 (CCXII) was a leap year starting on Wednesday of the Julian calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Asper and Camilius. The denomination 212 for this year has been used since the early medieval period, when the Anno Domini calendar era became the prevalent method in Europe for naming years.
Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, better known by his nickname Caracalla, was Roman emperor from 198 to 217 AD. He was a member of the Severan dynasty, the elder son of Emperor Septimius Severus and Empress Julia Domna. Proclaimed co-ruler by his father in 198, he reigned jointly with his brother Geta, co-emperor from 209, after their father's death in 211. His brother was murdered by the Praetorian Guard later that year under orders from Caracalla, who then reigned afterwards as sole ruler of the Roman Empire. Caracalla found administration to be mundane, leaving those responsibilities to his mother. Caracalla's reign featured domestic instability and external invasions by the Germanic peoples.
The judiciary is the system of courts that adjudicates legal disputes/disagreements and interprets, defends, and applies the law in legal cases.
Ulpian was a Roman jurist born in Tyre. He moved to Rome and rose to become considered one of the great legal authorities of his time. He was one of the five jurists upon whom decisions were to be based according to the Law of Citations of Valentinian III, and supplied the Justinian Digest about a third of its contents.
Roman Egypt was an imperial province of the Roman Empire from 30 BC to AD 641. The province encompassed most of modern-day Egypt except for the Sinai. It was bordered by the provinces of Crete and Cyrenaica to the west and Judaea, later Arabia Petraea, to the East.
In modern historiography, ancient Rome encompasses the founding of the Italian city of Rome in the 8th century BC, the Roman Kingdom, Roman Republic, Roman Empire, and the collapse of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century AD.
The Digest, also known as the Pandects, was a compendium or digest of juristic writings on Roman law compiled by order of the Byzantine emperor Justinian I in 530–533 AD. It is divided into 50 books.
A Roman military diploma was a document inscribed in bronze certifying that the holder was honourably discharged from the Roman armed forces and/or had received the grant of Roman citizenship from the emperor as reward for service.
Citizenship in ancient Rome was a privileged political and legal status afforded to free individuals with respect to laws, property, and governance. Citizenship in Ancient Rome was complex and based upon many different laws, traditions, and cultural practices. There existed several different types of citizenship, determined by one's gender, class, and political affiliations, and the exact duties or expectations of a citizen varied throughout the history of the Roman Empire.
The Constitutio Antoniniana, 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 given full Roman citizenship.
Julius Paulus, often simply referred to as Paul in English, was one of the most influential and distinguished Roman jurists. He was also a praetorian prefect under the Roman Emperor Alexander Severus.
The Greco-Roman civilization, as understood by modern scholars and writers, includes the geographical regions and countries that culturally—and so historically—were directly and intimately influenced by the language, culture, government and religion of the Greeks and Romans. A better-known term is classical antiquity. In exact terms the area refers to the "Mediterranean world", the extensive tracts of land centered on the Mediterranean and Black Sea basins, the "swimming pool and spa" of the Greeks and the Romans, in which those peoples' cultural perceptions, ideas, and sensitivities became dominant in classical antiquity.
Lucius Octavius Cornelius Publius Salvius Iulianus Aemilianus, generally referred to as Salvius Julianus, or Julian the Jurist, or simply Julianus, was a well known and respected jurist, public official, and politician who served in the Roman imperial state. Of north African origin, he was active during the long reigns of the emperors Hadrian, Antoninus Pius, and Marcus Aurelius, as well as the shorter reign of Marcus Aurelius' first co-Emperor, Lucius Verus.
Marcius Agrippa was originally a slave serving as a beautician. He later became a freedman in some unknown way and then (illegally) started to encroach upon the rank of Equestrian, serving as advocatus fisci during the reign of Septimius Severus. His impersonation of a man of higher rank was discovered shortly afterwards, and the emperor exiled him to an island. He was called back to Rome by the emperor Caracalla, probably given a grant of ingenuitas, and he was elevated to senatorial rank. He was appointed by the emperor Macrinus in 217, first to the government of Pannonia and afterwards to that of Dacia.
In ancient Rome, the dediticii or peregrini dediticii were a class of free provincials who were neither slaves nor citizens holding either full Roman citizenship as cives or Latin rights as Latini.
The Novellae Constitutiones, or Justinian's Novels, are now considered one of the four major units of Roman law initiated by Roman emperor Justinian I in the course of his long reign. The other three pieces are: the Codex Justinianus, the Digest, and the Institutes. Justinian's quaestor Tribonian was primarily responsible for compiling these last three. Together, the four parts are known as the Corpus Juris Civilis. Whereas the Code, Digest, and Institutes were designed by Justinian as coherent works, the Novels are diverse laws enacted after 534 that never were officially compiled during his reign.
In Roman law, a novel is a new decree or edict, in other words a new law. The term was used from the fourth century AD onwards and was specifically used for laws issued after the publishing of the Codex Theodosianus in 438 and then for the Justiniac Novels, or Novellae Constitutiones. The term was used on and off in later Roman history until falling out of use during the late Byzantine period.
The law school of Berytus was a center for the study of Roman law in classical antiquity located in Berytus. It flourished under the patronage of the Roman emperors and functioned as the Roman Empire's preeminent center of jurisprudence until its destruction in AD 551.
The Code of Justinian is one part of the Corpus Juris Civilis, the codification of Roman law ordered early in the 6th century AD by Justinian I, who was Eastern Roman emperor in Constantinople. Two other units, the Digest and the Institutes, were created during his reign. The fourth part, the Novellae Constitutiones, was compiled unofficially after his death but is now also thought of as part of the Corpus Juris Civilis.
