Proculus (fl. 1st century CE) was an ancient Roman jurist who founded a distinctive tradition of the interpretation of Roman law. His followers were known as the "Proculiani", or Proculeans, after him.
The full name of Proculus is unknown. He apparently wrote at least eight books of legal epistles. Passages from his writings are repeatedly cited in legal digests, where his opinion is given in matters of dispute. Proculus appears to have developed the interpretations of the earlier jurist Marcus Antistius Labeo, on whose work he is said to have written a commentary. [1]
Though Proculus did not always agree with Labeo, the two were usually paired in contrast with an alternative tradition identified with Ateius Capito and Masurius Sabinus, who founded the rival Sabinian school of interpretation, which was typically more conservative and rigid. [2] The most famous topic of disagreement concerned the ownership of materials used to make something. Sabinus held that if an artist created a valuable painting or sculpture on wood of little value owned by another person, the original owner of the wood retained ownership, while Proculus argued that the form is more important than the material substance and therefore the artist owned it as he had made something new. This debate was later commented on by David Hume and Adam Smith. [3]
Proculus appears to have lived during the late Julio-Claudian period, and is said to have practiced law under Nero. [4] He may be identical to the Licinius Proculus, who was Praetorian Prefect in the reign of Otho. [1]
David Hume was a Scottish Enlightenment philosopher, historian, economist, librarian, and essayist, who is best known today for his highly influential system of philosophical empiricism, skepticism, and naturalism. Beginning with A Treatise of Human Nature (1739–40), Hume strove to create a naturalistic science of man that examined the psychological basis of human nature. Hume followed John Locke in rejecting the existence of innate ideas, concluding that all human knowledge derives solely from experience. This places him with Francis Bacon, Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, and George Berkeley as an empiricist.
Jurisprudence is the philosophy and theory of law. It is concerned primarily with what the law is and what it ought to be. That includes questions of how persons and social relations are understood in legal terms, and of the values in and of law. Work that is counted as jurisprudence is mostly philosophical, but it includes work that also belongs to other disciplines, such as sociology, history, politics and economics.
Natural law is a system of law based on a close observation of human nature, and based on values intrinsic to human nature that can be deduced and applied independently of positive law. According to the theory of law called jusnaturalism, all people have inherent rights, conferred not by act of legislation but by "God, nature, or reason." Natural law theory can also refer to "theories of ethics, theories of politics, theories of civil law, and theories of religious morality."
Property is a system of rights that gives people legal control of valuable things, and also refers to the valuable things themselves. Depending on the nature of the property, an owner of property may have the right to consume, alter, share, redefine, rent, mortgage, pawn, sell, exchange, transfer, give away, or destroy it, or to exclude others from doing these things, as well as to perhaps abandon it; whereas regardless of the nature of the property, the owner thereof has the right to properly use it under the granted property rights.
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.
Jus commune or ius commune is Latin for "common law" in certain jurisdictions. It is often used by civil law jurists to refer to those aspects of the civil law system's invariant legal principles, sometimes called "the law of the land" in English law. While the ius commune was a secure point of reference in continental European legal systems, in England it was not a point of reference at all. The phrase "the common law of the civil law systems" means those underlying laws that create a distinct legal system and are common to all its elements.
Marcus Antistius Labeo was a Roman jurist.
The Codex Theodosianus was a compilation of the laws of the Roman Empire under the Christian emperors since 312. A commission was established by Emperor Theodosius II and his co-emperor Valentinian III on 26 March 429 and the compilation was published by a constitution of 15 February 438. It went into force in the eastern and western parts of the empire on 1 January 439. The original text of the codex is also found in the Breviary of Alaric, promulgated on 2 February 506.
Masurius Sabinus, also Massurius, was a Roman jurist who lived in the time of Tiberius. Unlike most jurists of the time, he was not of senatorial rank and was admitted to the equestrian order only rather late in life, by virtue of his exceptional ability and imperial patronage. Masurius was the first person to give "state-certified opinions" (publice respondere), a privilege granted by the emperor which marked increasing imperial control over the judicial process after the end of the Roman Republic. Before the Principate of Augustus, the value of legal opinions was based on the expertise of those who gave them. The passage in the Digest of Justinian that discusses the granting of Masurius's authority is thus a pivotal point in the history of Roman law.
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.
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.
Gaius Ateius Capito was a Roman jurist in the time of emperors Augustus and Tiberius. He was consul suffectus in the year 5 from July to December as the colleague of Gaius Vibius Postumus.
Sextus Pedius was a Roman jurist during the late first and early second centuries. He was a contemporary to the Roman Jurists Aulus Ofilius and Massurius Sabinus, and also mentioned in the writings of Pomponius.
Aulus Ofilius was a Roman jurist of Equestrian rank, who lived in the Roman Republic. He is named as a jurist by Pomponius. Ofilius was a friend to Roman statesman Marcus Tullius Cicero, dictator Gaius Julius Caesar and in opinion had opposed the jurist Trebatius Testa.
Cornelius Labeo was an ancient Roman theologian and antiquarian who wrote on such topics as the Roman calendar and the teachings of Etruscan religion (Etrusca disciplina). His works survive only in fragments and testimonia. He has been dated "plausibly but not provably" to the 3rd century AD. Labeo has been called "the most important Roman theologian" after Varro, whose work seems to have influenced him strongly. He is usually considered a Neoplatonist.
Furtum was a delict of Roman law comparable to the modern offence of theft despite being a civil and not criminal wrong. In the classical law and later, it denoted the contrectatio ("handling") of most types of property with a particular sort of intention – fraud and in the later law, a view to gain. It is unclear whether a view to gain was always required or added later, and, if the latter, when. This meant that the owner did not consent, although Justinian broadened this in at least one case. The law of furtum protected a variety of property interests, but not land, things without an owner, or types of state or religious things. An owner could commit theft by taking his things back in certain circumstances, as could a borrower or similar user through misuse.
The gens Neratia or Naeratia was a plebeian family at ancient Rome, some of whom subsequently became patricians. The first of the gens to appear in history occur in the time of Augustus, but they did not rise to prominence until the time of Vespasian, when Marcus Neratius Pansa became the first to obtain the consulship. The Neratii married into the Roman imperial family in the fourth century.
The gens Nymphidia was a plebeian family at ancient Rome. Members of this gens are not mentioned until imperial times, and none of them are known to have obtained any of the higher offices of the Roman state, although one of them, Gaius Nymphidius Sabinus, attempted to seize the throne following the death of the emperor Nero.
Titius Aristo was a distinguished jurist of ancient Rome, who lived around the 1st and 2nd centuries CE, under the emperor Trajan, and was a friend of Pliny the Younger. He is spoken of by Pliny in terms of the highest praise, as not only an excellent man and profound scholar, but a lawyer thoroughly acquainted with private and public law, and perfectly skilled in the practice of his profession.
The Proculeian or Pegasian school was one of the two most important schools of law in ancient Rome during the 1st and 2nd centuries.