Introduction
Any course of study of Roman law is pulled in two directions. On the one hand, the study of Roman law is an important part of the study of the historical civiliÂsation of Rome more generally.
The law of the Romans is among their greatest cultural and intellectual achievements, and it is perhaps even the greatest of these, and this fact alone would make it worth studying. To understand Roman law in this context requires deep study of how the Romans themselves thought about law and how they developed and applied it. On the other hand, Roman law is also worth studying, not just for its own sake, but because of its continuing importance in modern law. For that purpose, it is more important to understand the process by which Roman law came to influence modern law and its continuing importance to modern law. These two elements — Roman law as historical legal system and Roman law as a source of modern law — are not always entirely compatible.However the conflict is to be resolved, though, a proper study of Roman law must involve both of these elements. Throughout this book, we will be spendÂing a lot of time looking at Roman law from the standpoint of its importance to modern law. At the same time, though, it is necessary to understand Roman law in its own terms as well. We begin in this chapter, then, by considering the hisÂtorical, political and constitutional context within which Roman law developed, because to study Roman law without this is not really to study Roman law at all. Roman law, like any system of law, was a product of the society that gave birth to it. The subject matter of this chapter is, then, a historical account of the Roman world and how it was governed.
B.