The Law Of Obligations In The Later Roman Republic

Explores a fundamental building block of Roman life

This book is widely regarded as one of the most remarkable achievements in Roman Law and Comparative Law scholarship this century - a fact attested to by the universal acclaim with which it has been received throughout Europe, America, and beyond. As a work of Roman Law scholarship it fusesthe vast volume of 20th century scholarship on the Roman law of obligations into a clear and very readable (and in many ways original) account of the law. As a work of comparative law it traces the transformation of the Roman law of obligations over the centuries into what is now modern German,English and South African law, presenting the reader with a contrast between these legal systems which is unique both in its scope and its depth. As a whole the book is written with a deep understanding of human nature and of many social, economic, and other forces that determine the face of thelaw.

This book focused on texts and contexts is dedicated to a great contemporary Romanist, legal historian and comparative lawyer: Professor Watson.

This is a comprehensive analysis of the idea of libertas and its conflicting uses in the political struggles of the late Roman Republic. By reconstructing Roman political thinking about liberty against the background of Classical and Hellenistic thought, it excavates two distinct intellectual traditions on the means allowing for the preservation and the loss of libertas. Considering the interplay of these traditions in the political debates of the first century BC, Dr Arena offers a significant reinterpretation of the political struggles of the time as well as a radical reappraisal of the role played by the idea of liberty in the practice of politics. She argues that, as a result of its uses in rhetorical debates, libertas underwent a form of conceptual change at the end of the Republic and came to legitimise a new course of politics, which led progressively to the transformation of the whole political system.

This volume brings together an international team of scholars to debate Cicero's role in the narrative of Roman law in the late Republic - a role that has been minimised or overlooked in previous scholarship. This reflects current research that opens a larger and more complex debate about the nature of law and of the legal profession in the last century of the Roman Republic.

Comprehensive and accessible, this book offers a concise synthesis of the evolution of the law in Western Europe, from ancient Rome to the beginning of the twentieth century. It situates law in the wider framework of Europe’s political, economic, social and cultural developments.