Law and Power in the Making of the Roman Commonwealth

Demonstrates the paramount importance of laws in securing political equilibrium, stability, the integration of conquered peoples and a long-lasting empire.

Luigi Capogrossi Colognesi (Author), Laura Kopp (Translated by)

9781107420465, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 8 November 2018

402 pages
23 x 15.3 x 2.3 cm, 0.62 kg

With a broad chronological sweep, this book provides an historical account of Roman law and legal institutions which explains how they were created and modified in relation to political developments and changes in power relations. It underlines the constant tension between two central aspects of Roman politics: the aristocratic nature of the system of government, and the drive for increased popular participation in decision-making and the exercise of power. The traditional balance of power underwent a radical transformation under Augustus, with new processes of integration and social mobility brought into play. Professor Capogrossi Colognesi brings into sharp relief the deeply political nature of the role of Roman juridical science as an expression of aristocratic politics and discusses the imperial jurists' fundamental contribution to the production of an outline theory of sovereignty and legality which would constitute, together with Justinian's gathering of Roman legal knowledge, the most substantial legacy of Rome.

1. The genesis of a political community
2. Early Roman institutions
3. The Etruscans
4. From Monarchy to Republic
5. Rome's Republican institutions
6. Toward Italian hegemony
7. An aristocracy of government
8. The evolution of Roman law and jurisprudence
9. Rome's Mediterranean hegemony: new horizons in the third century BC
10. The reforms of the Gracchi and the crisis of the Roman ruling class
11. Sulla's attempted restoration and the twilight of the Republic
12. Civil war
13. Augustus: the construction of a new institutional system
14. The architecture of governance
15. The imperial order at its height
16. An empire of cities
17. The emperor and the law
18. The conclusion of a long journey.

Subject Areas: Roman law [LAFR], Constitution: government & the state [JPHC], Classical history / classical civilisation [HBLA1], Ancient history: to c 500 CE [HBLA]