Ulpian's Institutionum Libri: Types of Law in Ancient Rome

Extract

[...] Domitius Ulpianus, a politician of the early 3rd century, is the initiator of the Libri d'Ulpian or works intended for the teaching of law. The excerpt that we give ourselves to study here, the Institutionum libri d'Ulpian (D.1.1.1-4), undertakes a distinct, explanatory, and elaborated description of the different types of rights, recognized and existing in the exercise of Roman law during the period. It also highlights, on the margins of the main concepts adopted by the ius classical Roman, a period of very rooted formalism, in which theoretical distinct classifications coexist with the emergence of a new and fundamental concept, that of natural law. [...]

[...] This underlies the existence of new needs and a transformation of Roman civil life, which will soon see the development of a true 'commercial law' due to the accentuation of exchanges and commercial disputes that Roman civil law has struggled to regulate so far. We see it, this excerpt not only transcribes the fundamental role of the law text in ancient Rome but even more so the actions in law that, through their evolution, tend to soften a law originally classical, normed, consolidating the pride of an entire civilization and authorizing the addition of personal views, such as those of Ulpian here, in the creation of laws. [...]

[...] At the dawn of the existence of praetorian law, it is for Ulpien to define in a very formalized manner the fundamental ritualized distinctions of Roman law, a concern that reflects the rigidity of a matter that many will reproduce year after year. However, this excerpt also highlights the definition of a new natural law by the Roman legislator. It proposes to recognize what 'nature has taught all animals; for this law is not peculiar to the human species, but it is common to all animals that are born on the earth and in the sea, and also to birds' and shows the emergence of the ius gentium like that used by human nations. [...]