Master's Law (Ancient Rome)

The name Quirite right ( jus Quiritium ) comes from the name of the most ancient tribe of Quirites . The basis of the Roman legal order until the III. n er contained not in the law, but in the process. Pretori , annually updating their edicts and introducing new procedural means of protection into them or excluding already outdated methods of protection, in fact determined the further steps in the development of the Roman legal system. In the course of this work, the appeal went both to the norms of jus Quiritium and to the norms of jus gentium - the right of peoples. Finally, by the beginning of the III c. n er a new legal system of the Roman Empire was formed, called jus civile - civil law (law, the subjects of which are all free inhabitants of the state - citizens of the Roman Empire). In the epoch of principality and dominat, jus civile was at the same time a set of norms of existing law and the science of law.

The position of edils among the Roman magistracies is predominantly police . Although each magistrate in Rome had police authority, the increasing complexity of social life in growing Rome required the concentration of police supervision. As a result, the edils become the police authority. According to Cicero , the following functions are assigned to edils:

1. cura urbis - observation of order in the city and fire police;
2. cura annonae - taking care of supplying the people with food, supervising trade in the markets, over the correctness of measures and weights - trade police;
3. cura ludorum - care about the device of public games and circuses.

Praetor law is what praetors have entered for the sake of improving, or supplementing, or correcting civil law for public benefit.

Pretori law is fixed in the second half of the 2nd century n er as a special procedural system and a way to implement the norms of Quirite law and the rights of peoples. The development of the economy, the growth of slavery, the concentration in the hands of the dominant elite of the slave-owning class of commercial and usury capital and large landed property contributed to the emergence of this system of law. All these socio-economic conditions made the old jus civile decrees insufficient, it became necessary to correct and supplement them. This work fell on the magistrates and praetors. The general task of the pretorian activity is custodia urbis , that is, a general concern for the protection of inner city peace and order. According to the Roman views, hence both the criminal and civil jurisdiction of the praetors followed by itself. As the police function became more and more concentrated in the hands of the editors, the Praetor gradually specialized specifically in the field of jurisdiction, thus turning into a magistracy, mainly judicial .

At first, the purpose of the pretoryan activities was to fill in the jus civile gaps . Often, very significant reforms were introduced in the field of law. The orders of praetors to private individuals could otherwise be different from what the law dictated. In view of this particular case, the law was formally removed, this temporary withdrawal actually turned into a permanent one, and jus civile became “bare right” - nudum jus Quiritium .

One of the sources of Roman law was the edicts of praetors , which indicated the circumstances in which judicial protection was provided. Some of these edicts defined the general program of the pretitory activity for the whole year of his office and contained a number of general rules (edictum perpetuum), others had in mind some particular specific cases (edictum repentinum). Each new praetor, while drafting his edict, took into account the edicts of his predecessors. Thus, the administrative and criminal practice of the praetors was gradually deposited, and over time, a set of Praetor norms was formed, passing from an edict to an edict (edictum tralaticium). Formally, the decisions of the praetor's edict were not obligatory for him, but for clarity of law and order were of considerable interest, so that the praetor remained true to his edictal promises. The legal significance of the edict was strengthened, so that Cicero called it already "the law for a year" - lex annua.

The lawyer Salvius Julian was instructed to collect, revise and put in order the edictum perpetuum (125-138 AD) in order to consolidate certain decrees of praetor law. Edictum perpetuum was not recognized by law, but the special senate adviser declared it unchangeable, the right to make additions was left only for the emperor. This edict included two parts, each of which consisted of a certain number of titles of small volume. In the first part, certain moments and points of the claims were published, and in the second part, typical formulas of the claims were given. In the edict there was no special system, since its content was formed historically, over the centuries.

• Zaikov A.V. Roman private law in a systematic presentation - M., 2012 - pp. 31-37, 45-46.
• Pokrovsky I.A. The History of Roman Law - St. Petersburg, 1998 - p.127-132
• Roman Private Law: Textbook ed. I. B. Novitsky and I. S. Peretersky - M. - p.20, 28-30