By Tony Honoré
Editor's Note—The
palingenesia presented on these pages was prepared by Professor Honoré
to accompany his Emperors and Lawyers, 2nd ed. (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 1994), ISBN 0-19-825769-4. It is reproduced here by
the kind permission of the author and of the Oxford University Press.
Those who consult the palingenesia are asked to observe all appropriate
copyright restrictions.
* * *
The Palingenesia lists private imperial rescripts in
Latin between 193 and 305 AD. General information about its character is given
in the preface. Its core is a comprehensive collection, arranged
chronologically, of Latin rescripts to private petitioners on points of law
(ad ius). These number 2,609, though as explained in the preface the
number of texts listed is somewhat greater, because the compilers of legal
codes and other collections have sometimes split a rescript into two or three
parts. Some documents that are not private rescripts but that occur in well-known
legal sources have also been included. The rescripts have been drawn from a
number of sources, including Justinian's Codex (CJ), Digest (D)
and Institutes (J Inst) and other ancient collections such as Vatican
Fragments (FV), Collatio legum Mosaicarum et Romanarum (Collatio),
Consultatio veteris iurisconsulti (Cons), the Visigothic summary of the
Codex Gregorianus and Hermogenianus (CG Visi, CH Visi) the
Appendices to Lex Romana Visigothorum (Appx LR Visi), and the modern
Collectio Librorum Iuris Anteiustiniani (Collectio) together with those
found on inscriptions and papyri. All the constitutions listed are taken to be
rescripts on points of law in answer to petitions by private individuals (i.e.
what were at one time called subscriptiones) except those that are
specifically marked as letters to officials or prominent people
(epistulae) or other types of imperial law, such as edicts
(edicta), final or interlocutory judgments (sententiae), and oral
pronouncements made out of court (interlocutiones de plano). In
principle these other types of constitution should not be included in the
Palingenesia, but exceptions have been made when they appear in well-known
legal sources such as CJ or Vatican Fragments, so that their omission might
cause puzzlement. Rescripts on matters other than law, such as the granting or
refusal of concessions or privileges, are likewise in principle excluded; so
are those of which we have only a text in Greek (with the exception of three
from Justinian's Codex and Digest), and those that cannot be
dated to the period 193-305. The same holds of impromptu answers to petitioners
of the sort collected in the Apokrimata of Septimius Severus, which were
not referred to the secretary for petitions (procurator a libellis, magister
libellorum) to draft a reply on a point of law and so cannot be relied on
as evidence for the secretary's style.
Posts
Stumble It!
