The Romans were the most legal-minded people of antiquity.
It was their mission to give laws to the world. Almost at the beginning of the
republic they framed the code of the Twelve Tables, which long remained
the basis of their jurisprudence. This code, however, was so harsh, technical,
and brief that it could not meet the needs of a progressive state. The Romans
gradually improved their legal system, especially after they began to rule over
conquered nations. The disputes which arose between citizens and subjects were
decided by the praetors or provincial governors in accordance with what seemed
to them to be principles of justice and equity. These principles gradually
found a place in Roman law, together with many rules and observances of foreign
peoples. Roman law in this way tended to take over and absorb all that was best
in ancient jurisprudence.
CHARACTER OF ROMAN LAW
Thus, as the extension of the citizenship carried the
principles and practice of Roman law to every quarter of the empire, the spirit
of that law underwent an entire change. It became exact, impartial, liberal,
humane. It limited the use of torture to force confession from persons accused
of crime. It protected the child against a father's tyranny. It provided that a
master who killed a slave should be punished as a murderer, and even taught
that all men are originally free by the law of nature and therefore that
slavery is contrary to natural right. Justice it defined as "the steady
and abiding purpose to give every man that which is his own." [18] Roman
law, which began as the rude code of a primitive people, ended as the most
refined and admirable system of jurisprudence ever framed by man. This law, as
we shall see later, has passed from ancient Rome to modern Europe.
