Curated category
Roman law
- Codex GregorianusThe Codex Gregorianus is a collection of imperial Roman laws assembled from more than a century and a half of imperial pronouncements, spanning from the 130s…
- Lex AquiliaThe lex Aquilia emerged during the 3rd century BC within the Roman Republic. Historians debate whether it arrived around 286 BC or later near 200 BC.
- Lex Fufia CaniniaThe Lex Fufia Caninia, passed in 2 BC under the first Roman emperor Augustus, did something no Roman master had ever faced before: it told them how many of…
- Roman lawRoman law, born in the mid-fifth century BC with the carving of the Twelve Tables, would go on to shape legal thinking for more than two thousand years.
- Dignitas (Roman concept)Dignitas, a Latin word from ancient Rome, had no clean translation in English. Not dignity alone, not prestige, not charisma.
- Corpus Juris CivilisThe Corpus Juris Civilis, which translates literally as "Body of Civil Law," was assembled between 529 and 534 by order of the Roman Emperor Justinian I.
- Colonies in antiquityColonies in antiquity could stay loyal to a distant mother-city for generations, or break free the moment they were founded.
- Edict of MilanThe Edict of Milan did not make Christianity the official religion of Rome. That is the first misconception worth clearing up.
- Roman tribeA Roman denarius from 63 BC shows a voter casting a ballot, but the story of Roman tribes begins much earlier. Tradition holds that Romulus created three…
- ImperiumImperium was the word ancient Romans used for the kind of power that could not be argued with. It came from imperare, the Latin verb meaning to command, and…
- Patronage in ancient RomePatronage in ancient Rome was, according to Greek historians Dionysius and Plutarch, one of the earliest concerns of Romulus himself.
- Roman magistrateRoman magistrates held a kind of power that modern democracies have spent centuries trying to limit, balance, and ultimately escape.