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Updated: June 16, 2025
Men who would have been statesmen under the Republic, found a solace and delight in legal studies. Among the most learned jurists of this era, were Caius Papinian, and Ulpian. The two most popular systems of philosophy in the closing days of the Republic and the early period of the Empire, were the Stoic and the Epicurean.
Papinian, the brave praetorian prefect, one of the most learned lawyers of his time, had incurred Caracalla's fury by refusing to say that the murder of Geta was not without excuse; and his noble answer, that it was easier to commit fratricide than to defend it, cost him his life.
Papinian, the brave praetorian prefect, one of the most learned lawyers of his time, had incurred Caracalla's fury by refusing to say that the murder of Geta was not without excuse; and his noble answer, that it was easier to commit fratricide than to defend it, cost him his life.
And at their head his stern father, and the other worthy men who had ruled Rome with wisdom and honor, would shout in his face: "A hundred thousand times a murderer! robber of the state! destroyer of the army!" and drag him before the judgment-seat; and before judgment could be pronounced the hundred thousand, led by the noblest of all his victims, the good Papinian, would rush upon him and tear him limb from limb.
The great commentator Cujacius, declares that he was the first of all lawyers who have been, or who are to be; that no one ever surpassed him in legal knowledge, and no one will ever equal him. Paulus was his contemporary, and held the same office as Papinian. He was the most fertile of Roman law-writers, and there is more taken from him in the Digest than from any other jurist, except Ulpian.
Such intrepid virtue, which had escaped pure and unsullied from the intrigues courts, the habits of business, and the arts of his profession, reflects more lustre on the memory of Papinian, than all his great employments, his numerous writings, and the superior reputation as a lawyer, which he has preserved through every age of the Roman jurisprudence.
At a later period another school of jurisconsults arose, the great lights of jurisprudence for all time. But Ulpian and Paulus, Gaius and Papinian, were not authors of Responses. Their works were regular treatises on particular departments of the law, more especially on the Prætor's Edict.
Wherefore Papinian declares it is better to give false judgment than none at all, seeing how men without justice are no better than wild beasts in the woods, whereas by justice is made manifest their nobleness and dignity, as is seen by the example of the Judges of the Areopagus, who were held in special honour among the Athenians.
7 As, however, the covenants which had become necessary through the SC. Pegasianum were disliked even by the older lawyers, and are in certain cases considered injurious by the eminent jurist Papinian, and it being our desire that our statute book should be clear and simple rather than complicated, we have, after placing these two senatusconsults side by side and examining their points of resemblance and difference, resolved to repeal the SC. Pegasianum, as the later enactment, and to give exclusive authority to the SC. Trebellianum, under which in future all trust inheritances are to be transferred, whether the testator has freely given his heir a fourth of the property, or more or less, or even nothing at all: provided always, that when the heir has either nothing or less than a fourth, it shall be lawful for him, under our authority expressed in this statute, to retain a fourth, or to recover it by action if he has already paid it over, the heir and the transferee being capable both of suing and being sued in proportion to their shares in the inheritance, after the analogy of the SC. Trebellianum; and provided also, that if the heir voluntarily transfers the whole inheritance, the transferee shall be able to sue and be sued on all actions relating to the inheritance whatsoever.
Already an assessor to Papinian, and a member of the imperial privy council, he was raised to the praetorian prefecture and afterwards removed from it by his countryman, the Emperor Heliogabalus, but reinstated by Alexander Severus, under whom he was second ruler of the Empire till killed in a revolt of the praetorian guards in the year 228.
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