This book is a contribution to a new – and welcome – series, entitled Oxford Studies in Roman Society and Law, aimed at an inter-disciplinary audience; it already includes a volume on the ager publicus of the mid and later Republic. It is not a monograph, but an introduction (of some 150 pages) in five chapters to the main problems facing a reader of the Collatio. There follow a Latin text and an English translation, unfortunately consecutive rather than on facing pages, and then some 50 pages of commentary. As well as tables of the sources there is a substantial list of works cited, a select general index and an index of modern scholars. As usual, OUP has produced an elegant volume, and I only noted one misprint.
There is no doubt that there is need for further study of the Collatio. The last ‘modern’ edition was Hyamson's in 1913. As F. says, many advances in knowledge have been made, in particular Schulz's establishment of the correct relationship of the manuscripts, and our increased knowledge of the technicalities of law-making in the Roman Empire, as well as the overall increase in the study of late antiquity. From the outset, by choosing to use the Collatio as his text's name, F. indicates that he is not trying to produce a textual/philological edition but investigating the work as lawyers have long known it and used it. Using ‘pagan’ to include not only polytheists but also believers in a ‘greater god force’ would also seem to be opting for the pragmatism of lawyers, rather than the more subtle distinctions pursued by the historians of the later Empire.
The first chapter gives background to the Collator's work, to provide a ‘window on his age’. F. begins with some rapid legal history, accepting the real thread of continuity between the third and fifth centuries. He then considers religious history: the relative tolerance under Constantine, giving way to serious hostility towards heretics in the later fourth century. He sees a dramatic intersection of legal and religious developments under Theodosius I when paganism's importance declined. But he concludes, ‘[t]he Collator was the product of traditional juristic education in the Later Empire’.
The second chapter is on the date of the Collatio. Much of the lengthy discussion of its medieval history seemed irrelevant to the scope of this book, which is concerned with the Roman Empire. The Collator cites lavishly the Pauli Sententiae and both the Codex Gregorianus and Codex Hermogenianus, so F. accepts, uncontroversially, the end of the third century or start of the fourth as the earliest date from internal evidence. The text which creates the problem is Coll. 5.3.1, an enactment, dated May 390, of Theodosius condemning male prostitutes, which is essentially Cod. Theod. 9.7.6. There are no other citations of fourth-century legislation (except, perhaps, a reference to a law of 315 on kidnapping at Coll. 14.3.6). This in itself makes F.'s argument that the Collatio was compiled in 390/95 weak, and his rejection of Volterra's view that 5.3.1 was an interpolation too hasty. If the Collator was really a lawyer, as F. argues, it seems unlikely that he would have had no access to modern law, or even legal archives, however unsystematic such archives were.
The Collator's sources clearly included juristic material, and particular weight was already given to the five jurists who were later to feature in the Law of Citations of 426. Most used was the post-classical Pauli Sententiae, though F. does not follow Liebs' dismissal of any serious Pauline input. F.'s treatment is, however, superficial, as indeed was the Collator's. In the second part of the chapter F. considers the biblical sources. He is rather concerned with the Latin version of the Hebrew used for the biblical quotations which start each of the sixteen titles. He sees that Jerome's translation of the Pentateuch would have been too late, even if the Collator was working at the end of the fourth century. There were probably several versions of the uetus Latina, the Old Latin Bible, which F. demonstrates was the Collator's source (pp. 90–5).
The fourth chapter is on the Collator's method. F. suggests he was broadly following the order in the second part of the Ten Commandments. But the fit is fairly loose, and deposit, the subject of Title 10, is a puzzle. Harries thought that the Collator was acting at random towards the end of his work. Of Title 16 F. remarks, ‘Succession would be a natural further topic to fit under this rubric [of the tenth commandment] since Roman jurists loved to discuss it because succession was such a traditional theme of Roman jurisprudence’ (p. 106).
The final chapter is on the Collator's identity and purpose. F. does not accept (but his arguments are not very convincing, especially for the earlier dating) Volterra's theory that the Collator was a Talmudic scholar explaining Judaism to the Roman elite, or the corollary that the Collator was emphasising the good citizenship of Jews at a time when Christianity was becoming the religion of the emperor. Certainly, if the Collator was a Christian it is remarkable that he never refers to Christ. If he was Jewish, the manuscript can be presumed to have survived among the Jewish community in Rome; Jews as much as Christians would have thought the suppression of male brothels something worth adding.
The translation leaves something to be desired. To take examples from Title 2, de atroci iniuria, this rubric is rendered as ‘Concerning severe injury’; atrox iniuria may indeed be severe, but the meaning is that it is aggravated, and an element of outrage is implicit. In Coll. 2.2.1, F. again ignores the technical meaning of atrox and translates it as ‘frightful’. 2.3.1 on noxal surrender is not English. Damnum in 2.4.1 should be glossed as financially measurable loss. (F. promised in his introduction to avoid Latinity and explain his meanings.) In 2.1.5, non iure is not necessarily ‘unjustly’ but rather ‘without right’. In 2.5.4, we are told the action for iniuria is ‘prescribed by law or by honour’. The Latin aut legitima aut honoraria means based either on lex, the ius civile, or the ius honorarium, the praetor's development of the law; the next sentence explains the lex as being the Twelve Tables.
The commentary is clearly aimed at undergraduate students, who should benefit from an accessible edition. F. provides an extensive and thorough list of works cited, some 30 pages, which will be of great value to those wrestling with the problems posed by the text. The Collatio has become available in an attractive format to a wider audience.
