The law - a formal source of law in ancient Rome

• Author: Cristinel Ioan Murzea
• Position: Transilvania University of Brasov
• Pages: 411-418

Bulletin of the Transilvania University of Braşo v

Series VII: Social Sciences • Law • Vol. 12(61) No. 2 – 2019

https://doi.org/10.31926/but.ssl.2019.12.61.2.24

THE LAW – A FORMAL SOURCE OF LAW

IN ANCIENT ROME

Cristinel Ioan MURZEA1

Abstract: The law as a formal source of law appears in the Roman society

as a result of the social and political fight between the patricians and the

plebeians, as the latter aimed to fulfil their own interests which covered new

subjective laws, that conflicted with the political and judicial order of the

Roman society at the beginning of the republic. The law would prevail both

through its regulatory content, but also through elements of legislative

technique which were used, significantly more evolved than the other

sources of law in the Roman society.

Key words: lex, magistrate, formal source of law, legal habit, goods.

1. Introduction

The age of the republic, an age during which Rome would become a universal state as

a result of its significant territorial conquests, the citadel city becoming the most

powerful state of the antiquity, was mainly characterized, in regard to the social and

political situation, by a severe fight between the patricians and the plebeians, a fight

which resulted in the change of the Roman state, from a slavery oligarchic republic to a

democratic slavery republic which, as a result of the social reform that occurred towards

the middle of the third century BC, thus aggravating the social and political fight to the

extent to which the very existence of the Roman state was threatened, because of the

recession of the plebeians.

The change in the economic and social structure of the Roman society, the increasing

role of the plebeians within the Roman state, as well as the obvious influence of the

magistrates who were organized as an administrative and political institution, will

constitute factors which configure law, thus leading to significant changes in regard to

the formal sources of law which will, in turn, determine the replacement of the legal

habit with the law. From an etymological point of view, the word law meant an

agreement of will between two parties. When the agreement was reached between two

1 Transilvania University of Braşov, cristinel.murzea@unitbv.ro, correspondin g author