The texts of the Roman jurists pose a good number of challenges. These legal scholars were the main engines behind the transformation of Roman law from the late Republic to the mid-third century. With a surviving corpus in the range of one million words, their output is essential reading for anyone interested in Roman law, society and culture. The Scriptores Iuris Romani (SIR) series aims to make these texts available in an informative, accessible and up-to-date form. Volumes pair critical editions of the fragmentary texts in the original language (usually Latin) with translations, introductory essays and commentaries in Italian, the major academic language for the study of Roman law. This review samples three volumes (out of nineteen published so far), chosen for chronological and generic variety, to assess the contribution of the series.

The key challenges facing readers of this corpus — challenges for which they would expect servicing by scholarly editions and commentaries — stem from the technical nature of juristic writing and the state of textual survival. Firstly, the texts of the jurists tend to focus on points of legal doctrine and offer abstract discussions at some remove from a specific historical and situational present. Case reports, when they occur, have usually been pared down to their legal essentials, making it hard to view the lives of individuals. Doctrinal points can be difficult to piece together in and of themselves. But the pace and extent of legal change in the early Empire was such that most readers will seek support in relation to doctrinal chronology, the changing nature of law and legal writing and the place of legal developments in their wider social and intellectual contexts. This brings us to broader questions. What was driving these developments in Roman law? What can specific texts of specific jurists tell us about this process? And what were its effects?

Things are not made easier by the state of textual survival. Direct textual witnesses are exceedingly rare. Probably the best-known case is the Verona palimpsest of Gaius’ Institutes, giving us almost the full text. Important are also the c. 100 papyrus and parchment fragments, but they are often small and badly damaged. The reality is that most juristic texts have come down in the form of excerpts in late antique collections. The fifty books of Justinian’s Digest constitute by far the most extensive such collection, but there are others, including the Fragmenta Vaticana, the Lex Dei (often mistakenly called Collatio), and the Lex Romana Visigothorum. These collections commonly bring together short excerpts from different jurists under thematic subheadings (tituli or rubricae), dislodged from their original contexts. While Roman legal writing developed a habit of inscribing excerpts with indications of author, work and book number, the act of collecting amounted in effect to dismembering the ‘original’ works. Collections that proceed primarily by condensing single works rather than anthologising, such as the Lex Romana Visigothorum, gut their sources also, by cutting portions of the text, usually without indicating what and/or how much is missing. Thus we should keep in mind that collections are selections that went through an editorial process, and that it is often hard to tell if the texts were just cut and clipped, or also edited and adapted. Studies of textual passages that survive in more than one place, when there is at least one un-excerpted version, indicate that editorial intervention was common. In most cases of parallel transmission, however, there is no obvious un-adapted version.

For all these reasons, editing the texts of the jurists is a tricky business. The main existing work, Lenel’s Palingenesia Iuris Civilis (Leipzig 1889), disassembles the Digest and mines other witnesses to gather all surviving fragments from the same author and work. This approach is known to specialists as palingenesia. It is an extremely challenging undertaking. Firstly, there is the colossal scale of such a project. Secondly, the modern editor has to deal with the problem of diverging versions of the same text. Thirdly, the surviving excerpts usually do not indicate in what order they should be arranged, even when they are inscribed with a reference to the work title and book number, and sometimes even the titulus. The strength of Lenel’s work is a function of how judiciously he proceeded, distinguishing direct excerpts (printed in roman) from second-hand paraphrases (italics). In establishing the wording, Lenel resisted the temptation to purge every possible suspected ancient editorial intervention, instead presenting readers with the texts as they survive and adding short (and somewhat cryptic) footnotes flagging serious problems. He assessed diverging versions phrase by phrase rather than siding structurally with or against the Digest. In ordering fragments, he followed, whenever possible, one of two standardised sequences of rubricae that informed the structure of most law books in the imperial period (usually known as the Sabinian and Digesta systems; Lenel’s indices III–V). Two or more excerpts from the same book or rubrica of the same work are retained in the order in which they feature in the collection that preserves them. Lenel’s reluctance to intervene in the transmitted texts and his conservative yet sensible approach to ordering fragments have allowed his work to weather the twentieth-century storm of textual interpolation hunting and the rewriting of juristic texts in ‘classical’ style.

How does SIR navigate these problems? To what extent do individual volumes service those in need of a reliable and accessible text and interpretative-historical support? If we look beyond the general editor’s distracting claim that the series is there to celebrate a ‘gloriosa tradizione di studi del nostro Paese’ (vol. 1, vii), we should note that the series sets out to bring together and make accessible all material of all jurists. This includes taking stock of new textual witnesses that have come to light, mostly on papyrus and parchment, as well as digesting a century and a half of scholarship in many languages. The corpus is not precisely defined: the project website simply states ‘the writings of jurists handed down in the Digesta and in [unspecified] other anthologies’ (https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/670436). ‘Jurist’ and ‘jurisprudence’ are also left ambiguous: Lenel included only works pertaining to civil law, but the SIR volume of Quintus Mucius Scaevola indicates that ius sacrum is covered as well. And what are the chronological parameters? The volumes published so far cover late Republic to Severan Age, the so-called ‘classical’ period. But will future volumes include so-called ‘post-classical’ works such as Pauli Sententiae? Will they include the fifth-century interpretationes to Pauli Sententiae?

Let us turn to Quintus Mucius Scaevola (cos. 95 b.c.e.) to see things in more detail. The main problem with Mucius as a jurist is textual. Despite his authority as a foundational figure, and despite the wide circulation of his main work, the Iuris civilis libri XVIII, we are almost entirely reliant on second-hand paraphrases, usually in Pomponius’ commentary Ad Quintum Mucium. The structure of the work is very hard, if not impossible, to reconstruct.

Stolfi’s text differs considerably from Lenel’s, and I think it is a considerable improvement. Stolfi’s most consequential decision is to include the bulk of the surviving excerpts from Pomponius’ commentary. The concordance shows that Lenel left out many of these excerpts, listing them only under Pomponius, without providing much justification. Stolfi’s in-depth analysis of Pomponius in many cases leads him to conclude that there is probably a grain of Mucius’ thought, justifying his conclusions in the commentary. He adds a layer of caution by using italics to mark diction that cannot be ascribed to Mucius with certainty. In Stolfi’s edition, there are 81 fragments, as opposed to Lenel’s 44. The ordering largely follows Lenel but sensibly avoids a long appendix of not securely placeable fragments. Equipped with Ferrary’s judicious apparatus, Stolfi’s text is a major step forward.

The volume’s interpretative-historical apparatus is less consistently helpful. We know a fair bit about Mucius himself. The volume lists ten epigraphic testimonia, followed by 74 literary ones and a tantalising dipinto recently discovered in Rome (97). Ferrary has forged these into a detailed and compelling prosopographical essay of a Republican statesman and intellectual. Schiavone’s discussion of Mucius’ significance for intellectual history writ large is decidedly less compelling. This is a piece of Hegelian Kunstprosa, in which exaggerated contrasts and quasi-contradictions are supposed to let the reader discern a middle path of nuance (programmatic statement on 55). Here is how Schiavone develops his main claim, that Mucius revolutionised law by introducing abstract thinking. Thesis: before Mucius, the Romans had not really developed the capacity to think abstractly, certainly not in law (39). Antithesis: yet this is not quite correct, because case discussions ever since the Twelve Tables involved abstraction (41). Synthesis: therefore, Mucius’ contribution is a qualitative leap that elevated law into a separate locus of thought emancipated from social practice, ritualistic behaviours and ‘pensiero magico’ (41–2). The extreme generality of this claim makes it hard to criticise and/or falsify. Let me attempt one critique. The thesis is not only a sweeping statement devoid of nuance, but Schiavone also adduces no evidence in support of it. In fact, Brouwer’s Law and Philosophy in the Late Roman Republic (Cambridge 2021) shows that it is a non-starter. Now, the antithesis is an obvious objection, but the thesis is so doubtful that it contaminates the rest of the reasoning. In more empiricist terms, the whole argument relies on a highly simplistic prefab model of historical development. It makes no effort to understand and describe Roman legal thinking before Mucius, relying instead on a facile caricature that flirts with the idea of primitive people desperately awaiting the arrival of the light of reason. But how is it possible to characterise, understand (verstehen) and explain a revolution without describing and understanding the pre-existing paradigm? It is striking that Schiavone proceeds primarily by referencing his own earlier work rather than offering close readings of the evidence. It is also interesting to read Stolfi’s argument (113) that the material in Pomponius, compared with other sources, appears curated to make Mucius look less dependent on earlier jurists and formulate in very general terms. This dialectical moment is clearly an unresolved debate between the contributors (with no synthesis): it would have been stimulating to see more of this debate.

All in all, the volume stops short of addressing some of the burning bigger historical questions. Was the rise of analytical Roman law truly due to a singular individual? There is little attention to structural factors. What enabled a Mucius to have such an impact? Where did his ideas come from? Training in rhetoric and philosophy, friends active in the same, and Hellenistic handbooks were certainly important conditions, but what about Roman society? Is it sufficient to claim that Mucius introduced logic and abstraction to law? Does legal change not raise the question of changing social values? What does it mean to claim that law detaches itself from social practice? Is that even possible? The volume is largely silent about these questions. It is astounding in this connection to see that there is no engagement with Frier’s The Rise of the Roman Jurists (Princeton 1985) or Harries’s Cicero and the Jurists (London 2006).

The jurist Papirius Iustus, whose work is the first known collection of imperial constitutions, poses different challenges. The surviving excerpts ascribe all constitutions to Marcus Aurelius and Lucius Verus (books 1 and 2) or to Marcus alone (book 8). The text survives only in the Digest, so the problem of different versions does not apply. Palazzolo suggests that only these books are cited because they contained material (especially pertaining to civitates) not covered in other juristic works. Another question is why some excerpts report imperial rescripts in direct speech, others in indirect speech. Palazzolo largely sidesteps the problem by suggesting that all of this is compatible with a collection made by Iustus from archival sources. The edition itself seems to be identical to Lenel’s in diction and in the order of the fragments. The edition does not give the work its title, even though the title is attested in two variants in the Index Florentinus and the Digest’s citational inscriptions. The introduction references the work with a third variant not attested in the ancient record. The critical apparatus copiously reports variant readings from the manuscript tradition of the Digest and its derivates, which are rarely relevant to the text of Iustus. There is no key to the sigla, so readers will have to consult Mommsen’s Digest.

The big questions about Iustus concern the author, the timing of this first collection of imperial constitutions, the use of sources and archives, and the meaning of the term semenstria used by other jurists in connection with records of imperial legal texts of Marcus. We know nothing about Papirius Iustus himself. If we assume that the work only covered the reign of Marcus, then Iustus in all plausibility lived through his reign and possibly beyond. There is no more evidence. The volume nonetheless opens with a 26-page biographical essay by Licandro predicated on the idea that Papirius Iustus is identical to Marcus Aurelius Papirius Dionysius (PIR ² A 1567). There is nothing to suggest this identification. Licandro’s claim that the nomen Papirius was so rare in Marcus’ days that there could hardly have been two of them in imperial service is not substantiated. His suggestion that the Romans honoured Papirius Dionysius with the name Iustus because they were outraged by his assassination has no basis in evidence and is frustratingly unhelpful. It is jarring to see a list of testimonia for Papirius Dionysius in the volume, both incomplete and containing doublets. The contrast with Ferrary’s essay about Quintus Mucius Scaevola could not be starker.

The treatment of the other problems is also unsatisfactory. Lumping the timing and source questions together, Palazzolo’s main claim is that the Romans did not properly archive imperial writing before the time of Hadrian and preserved summaries at best. Any reader of the tenth book of Pliny’s letters, epigraphic texts such as CIL X, 7852 (codex ansatus), military diplomas, etc., is likely to have questions. It also seems clear that Cicero, Pliny and others kept copies of outgoing letters. The existence of epistolary archives is therefore the hypothesis to beat. A question that would have been worth exploring is whether such archives might have been organised (partly) by addressee: this is how rescripts and epistulae tend to be cited by jurists and Pliny/Trajan, how the (possibly ancient) table of contents of Pliny’s letters seems to work, and how the inscriptions on Iustus’ rescripts may function as well. Licandro briefly discusses the semenstria. He suggests they were lists with imperial decisions accessible in the palace. I see no real evidence to link the first publication of imperial constitutions with the rise of the codex format, as Licandro speculates.

Aelius Marcianus brings us to the Severan Age, often considered the golden age of Roman jurisprudence. For many students, the appeal of Marcianus’ Institutes lies in its generous use of quotations from Greek literature, including Homer, Demosthenes and Chrysippus, seamlessly woven into the texture of a legal handbook. Marcianus is also known for discussions of the fiscus, of slavery and whether it has natural underpinnings, and of res communes omnium.

Most fragments of the work are preserved in the Digest. Justinian’s Institutes also cites Marcianus by name a few times. Furthermore, a papyrus carrying part of the text has recently come to light (eds Fressura and Mantovani, Athenaeum 2018). Dursi’s text uses all these witnesses to provide the fragments that can be ascribed to Marcianus with confidence. In doing so, he convincingly refutes Ferrini’s attempt at crediting as much of Justinian’s Institutes to Marcianus as possible. The papyrus came to Dursi’s attention rather late in the game, but its text was evidently fully known to him. His decision at fr. 21 to follow the Digest version and largely ignore the un-excerpted papyrus remains unjustified. The text of Fressura and Mantovani should clearly be preferred.

Dursi’s exegetical apparatus is helpful. It bats back many of the wilder twentieth-century speculations about this author and his work. Dursi is right to conclude that we know next to nothing about the person Marcianus. His observation that Marcianus wrote some of his works while Caracalla was alive, others when Caracalla had been deified (divus), is correct. He shows that Marcianus’ work has many points of contact with Papinian’s, but that does not necessarily mean Papinian was Marcianus’ teacher. Relying on an old dichotomy, Dursi finds the work too detailed to be useful to law students, suggesting instead that it targeted legal professionals. He devotes brief discussions to literary quotations and Marcianus’ take on slavery and res communes omnium. There is more scope to discuss the question how this should be seen in the context of the literary culture known as Second Sophistic. In sum, Dursi’s volume is careful but somewhat uneven in the amount of detail it is willing to get into. It is an extremely useful resource.

Overall, SIR is strongest on the texts and the commentaries — though the notes mainly address legal matters. The introductory material tends to be rather variable in scholarly quality. A final note on accessibility: the SIR project was funded by an ERC grant, but readers expecting Open Access will experience disappointment. The publisher only offers free excerpts from select volumes. Excerpts are best located by conducting an internet search of the ISBN. There is no online database that lets users search the texts. The books cost in the range of €75 per volume. All of this is likely to make it harder for SIR to have the impact it obviously deserves.