Gaius (; ''
fl.
''Floruit'' (; abbreviated fl. or occasionally flor.; from Latin for "they flourished") denotes a date or period during which a person was known to have been alive or active. In English, the unabbreviated word may also be used as a noun indicatin ...
'' AD 130–180) was a
Roman
Roman or Romans most often refers to:
* Rome, the capital city of Italy
* Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD
*Roman people, the people of ancient Rome
*''Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a lett ...
jurist
A jurist is a person with expert knowledge of law; someone who analyses and comments on law. This person is usually a specialist legal scholar, mostly (but not always) with a formal qualification in law and often a legal practitioner. In the U ...
. Scholars know very little of his personal life. It is impossible to discover even his full name, Gaius or Caius being merely his personal name (''
praenomen''). As with his name it is difficult to ascertain the span of his life, but it is safe to assume he lived from AD 110 to at least AD 179, since he wrote on legislation passed within that time.
From internal evidence in his works it may be gathered that he flourished in the reigns of the emperors
Hadrian
Hadrian (; la, Caesar Trâiānus Hadriānus ; 24 January 76 – 10 July 138) was Roman emperor from 117 to 138. He was born in Italica (close to modern Santiponce in Spain), a Roman ''municipium'' founded by Italic settlers in Hispania ...
,
Antoninus Pius,
Marcus Aurelius
Marcus Aurelius Antoninus (Latin: áːɾkus̠ auɾέːli.us̠ antɔ́ːni.us̠ English: ; 26 April 121 – 17 March 180) was Roman emperor from 161 to 180 AD and a Stoic philosopher. He was the last of the rulers known as the Five Good E ...
and
Commodus
Commodus (; 31 August 161 – 31 December 192) was a Roman emperor who ruled from 177 to 192. He served jointly with his father Marcus Aurelius from 176 until the latter's death in 180, and thereafter he reigned alone until his assassination. ...
. His works were thus composed between the years 130 and 180. After his death, however, his writings were recognized as of great authority, and the emperor
Theodosius II named him in the ''
Law of Citations
The Law of Citations (''Lex citationum'') was a Roman law issued from Ravenna in AD 426 by the emperor Valentinian III, or rather by his regent mother, Galla Placidia Augusta, to the Senate and the people of Rome, and it included in both Theodos ...
,'' along with
Papinian
Aemilius Papinianus (; grc, Αἰμίλιος Παπινιανός; 142 CE–212 CE), simply rendered as Papinian () in English, was a celebrated Roman jurist, ''magister libellorum'', attorney general (''advocatus fisci'') and, after the dea ...
,
Ulpian
Ulpian (; la, Gnaeus Domitius Annius Ulpianus; c. 170223? 228?) was a Roman jurist born in Tyre. He was considered one of the great legal authorities of his time and was one of the five jurists upon whom decisions were to be based according to ...
,
Modestinus
Herennius Modestinus, or simply Modestinus, was a celebrated Roman jurist, a student of Ulpian who flourished about 250 AD.
He appears to have been a native of one of the Greek-speaking provinces, probably Dalmatia. In Valentinian's ''Law of Ci ...
and
Paulus, as one of the five jurists whose opinions were to be followed by judicial officers in deciding cases. The works of these jurists accordingly became most important sources of
Roman law
Roman law is the legal system of ancient Rome, including the legal developments spanning over a thousand years of jurisprudence, from the Twelve Tables (c. 449 BC), to the '' Corpus Juris Civilis'' (AD 529) ordered by Eastern Roman emperor J ...
.
Besides the ''
Institutes'', which are a complete exposition of the elements of Roman law, Gaius was the author of a treatise on the ''Edicts of the Magistrates'', of ''Commentaries on the
Twelve Tables'', and on the important ''Lex Papia Poppaea'', and several other works. His interest in the antiquities of Roman law is apparent, and for this reason his work is most valuable to the historian of early institutions. In the disputes between the two schools of Roman jurists he generally attached himself to that of the
Sabinians, who were said to be followers of
Ateius Capito, of whose life we have some account in the ''
Annals'' of
Tacitus, and to advocate a strict adherence as far as possible to ancient rules, and to resist innovation. Many quotations from the works of Gaius occur in the ''
Digest
Digest may refer to:
Biology
*Digestion of food
*Restriction digest
Literature and publications
*'' The Digest'', formerly the English and Empire Digest
*Digest size magazine format
* ''Digest'' (Roman law), also known as ''Pandects'', a digest ...
,'' created by
Tribonian
Tribonian ( Greek: Τριβωνιανός rivonia'nos c. 485?–542) was a notable Byzantine jurist and advisor, who during the reign of the Emperor Justinian I, supervised the revision of the legal code of the Byzantine Empire. He has been desc ...
at the direction of
Justinian I
Justinian I (; la, Iustinianus, ; grc-gre, Ἰουστινιανός ; 48214 November 565), also known as Justinian the Great, was the Byzantine emperor from 527 to 565.
His reign is marked by the ambitious but only partly realized '' renov ...
, and so acquired a permanent place in the system of Roman law; while a comparison of the ''
Institutes of Justinian'' with those of Gaius shows that the whole method and arrangement of the later work were copied from that of the earlier, and very numerous passages are word for word the same. The ''Digest'' and the ''Institutes of Justinian'' are part of the ''
Corpus Juris Civilis
The ''Corpus Juris'' (or ''Iuris'') ''Civilis'' ("Body of Civil Law") is the modern name for a collection of fundamental works in jurisprudence, issued from 529 to 534 by order of Justinian I, Byzantine Emperors, Byzantine Emperor. It is also ...
.'' Probably, for the greater part of the period of three centuries which elapsed between Gaius and Justinian, his ''Institutes'' had been the familiar textbook for all students of Roman law.
The ''Institutes''
The ''
Institutes'' of Gaius, written about the year AD 161, was an introductory textbook of legal institutions divided into four books: the first treating of persons and the differences of the status they may occupy in the eye of the law; the second of things, and the modes in which rights over them may be acquired, including the law relating to
wills; the third of intestate succession and of obligations; and the fourth of actions and their forms.
Another circumstance which renders the work of Gaius more interesting to the historical student than that of Justinian, is that Gaius lived at a time when actions were tried by the system of ''formulae,'' or formal directions given by the ''
praetor
Praetor ( , ), also pretor, was the title granted by the government of Ancient Rome to a man acting in one of two official capacities: (i) the commander of an army, and (ii) as an elected '' magistratus'' (magistrate), assigned to discharge vari ...
'' before whom the case first came, to the ''judex'' to whom he referred it. Without a knowledge of the terms of these ''formulae'' it is impossible to solve the most interesting question in the history of Roman law, and show how the rigid rules peculiar to the ancient law of Rome were modified by what has been called the equitable jurisdiction of the praetors, and made applicable to new conditions, and brought into harmony with the notions and the needs of a more developed society. It is clear from evidence of Gaius that this result was obtained, not by an independent set of courts administering, as in England previous to the
Judicature Acts, a system different from that of the ordinary courts, but by the manipulation of the ''formulae''. In the time of Justinian the work was complete, and the
formulary system had disappeared.
The work was lost to modern scholars, until, in 1816, a palimpsest was discovered by
B. G. Niebuhr in the chapter library of Verona, in which some of the works of
St. Jerome were written over some earlier writings, which proved to be the lost work of Gaius. The greater part of the
palimpsest has, however, been deciphered with the help of
August von Bethmann-Hollweg, and the text is now fairly complete. More recently, two sets of
papyrus
Papyrus ( ) is a material similar to thick paper that was used in ancient times as a writing surface. It was made from the pith of the papyrus plant, '' Cyperus papyrus'', a wetland sedge. ''Papyrus'' (plural: ''papyri'') can also refer to ...
fragments have been found. The discovery of Gaius' work has thrown a flood of light on portions of the history of Roman law which had previously been most obscure. Much of the historical information given by Gaius is wanting in the compilations of Justinian, and, in particular, the account of the ancient forms of procedure in actions. In these forms can be traced "survivals" from the most primitive times, which provide the science of comparative law with valuable illustrations, which may explain the strange forms of legal procedure found in other early systems.
There are several editions of the ''Institutes'', beginning with the ''
editio princeps In classical scholarship, the ''editio princeps'' (plural: ''editiones principes'') of a work is the first printed edition of the work, that previously had existed only in manuscripts, which could be circulated only after being copied by hand.
For ...
'' of I. F. L. Göschen (Berlin, 1820). The author of the 1911
Encyclopædia Britannica
The (Latin for "British Encyclopædia") is a general knowledge English-language encyclopaedia. It is published by Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.; the company has existed since the 18th century, although it has changed ownership various t ...
article recommends the English edition of Edward Poste published in 1885, which includes an English translation and copious commentary. More recent editions include E. Seckel and B. Kuebler (8th edition; Leipzig, 1939); Francis de Zulueta, containing his own Latin text with an English translation and commentary (1946); and W. M. Gordon and O. F. Robinson (London, 1988), with an English translation and the Latin text by Seckel and Kuebler. A comparison of the early forms of action mentioned by Gaius with those used by other primitive societies will be found in Sir
Henry Maine's ''Early Institutions'', chapter 9. For further information see M. Glasson, ''Étude sur Gaius et sur le jus respondendi''.
The relief of Gaius located over the gallery doorway at the Chambers of the House of Representatives in Washington D.C. was sculpted by Joseph Kiselewski.
Quotation
"The law is what the people order and establish", ''Institutiones, 1.2.3''.
[In the original ]Latin
Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through ...
: "Lex est quod populus iubet atque constituit
See also
*
Law of Citations
The Law of Citations (''Lex citationum'') was a Roman law issued from Ravenna in AD 426 by the emperor Valentinian III, or rather by his regent mother, Galla Placidia Augusta, to the Senate and the people of Rome, and it included in both Theodos ...
*
Roman law
Roman law is the legal system of ancient Rome, including the legal developments spanning over a thousand years of jurisprudence, from the Twelve Tables (c. 449 BC), to the '' Corpus Juris Civilis'' (AD 529) ordered by Eastern Roman emperor J ...
*
Legal history
Notes
External links
*
A collection of resources maintained by professor Ernest Metzger''The Roman Law Library'' by Professor Yves Lassard and Alexandr Koptev
{{DEFAULTSORT:Gaius
Ancient Roman jurists
Silver Age Latin writers
2nd-century Romans