Gaius Meets Cicero. Law and Rhetoric in the School Controversies sheds new light on a much debated issue in the field of Roman law, i.e. the so-called 'school controversies' between the Sabinians and the Proculians. Tessa Leesen rejects the general assumption in modern literature that the two schools each adhered to a fundamentally different theoretical conception of law. She argues that the 'school controversies' as described in Gaius' Institutiones arose in legal practice when the heads of the two schools were consulted by two conflicting parties and each gave opposing advice. In order to make their opinions persuasive, the jurists were in need of adequate arguments. For this purpose, they made use of rhetoric and of the argumentative theory of topoi as described in Cicero's Topica.

The Mishnah is the foundational document of rabbinic Judaism—all of rabbinic law, from ancient to modern times, is based on the Talmud, and the Talmud, in turn, is based on the Mishnah. But the Mishnah is also an elusive document; its sources and setting are obscure, as are its genre and purpose. In January 2021 the Harvard Center for Jewish Studies and the Julis-Rabinowitz Program on Jewish and Israeli Law of the Harvard Law School co-sponsored a conference devoted to the simple yet complicated question: “What is the Mishnah?” Leading scholars from the United States, Europe, and Israel assessed the state of the art in Mishnah studies; and the papers delivered at that conference form the basis of this collection. Learned yet accessible, What Is the Mishnah? gives readers a clear sense of current and future direction of Mishnah studies.

The Institutes are a complete exposition of the elements of Roman law and are divided into four books—the first treating of persons and the differences of the status they may occupy in the eye of the law; the second-of things, and the modes in which rights over them may be acquired, including the law relating to wills; the third of intestate succession and of obligations; the fourth of actions and their forms. For many centuries they had been the familiar textbook of all students of Roman law.

Accidents often occur not only through the fault of the wrongdoer but also partly through the conduct of the injured party. This contributory conduct of the injured party and its consequences for the delictual liability of the wrongdoer have been central issues in the study of private law for centuries. In Contributory Negligence. A Historical and Comparative Study Van Dongen presents a detailed study of how from Antiquity to today the negligent behaviour of the injured party has influenced claims for damages based on delictual liability and how it evolved into the modern concept of contributory negligence. His research comprises a comparative legal study of the main current developments concerning the concept of contributory negligence in France, Germany and the Netherlands.

This book reflects the wide range of current scholarship on Roman law. The essays, newly commissioned for this volume, cover the sources of evidence for classical Roman law, the elements of private law, as well as criminal and public law, and the second life of Roman law in Byzantium, in civil and canon law, and in political discourse from AD 1100 to the present. Roman law nowadays is studied in many different ways, which is reflected in the diversity of approaches in the essays. Some focus on how the law evolved in ancient Rome, others on its place in the daily life of the Roman citizen, still others on how Roman legal concepts and doctrines have been deployed through the ages. All of them are responses to one and the same thing: the sheer intellectual vitality of Roman law, which has secured its place as a central element in the intellectual tradition and history of the West.

A Companion to Ancient Education presents a series of essays from leading specialists in the field that represent the most up-to-date scholarship relating to the rise and spread of educational practices and theories in the ancient Greek and Roman worlds. Reflects the latest research findings and presents new historical syntheses of the rise, spread, and purposes of ancient education in ancient Greece and Rome Offers comprehensive coverage of the main periods, crises, and developments of ancient education along with historical sketches of various educational methods and the diffusion of education throughout the ancient world Covers both liberal and illiberal (non-elite) education during antiquity Addresses the material practice and material realities of education, and the primary thinkers during antiquity through to late antiquity

Over the first eight centuries CE, the religious cultures of Middle Eastern, Mediterranean and many European lands transformed. Worship of "the gods" largely gave way to the worship of YHWH, the God of Israel, under Christianity and Islam, both developments of contemporary Judaism, after Rome destroyed Judaism's central shrine, the Jerusalem Temple, in 70 CE. But concomitant changes occurred within contemporary Judaism. The events of 70 wiped away well-established Judaic institutions in the Land of Israel, and over time the authority of a cadre of new "masters" of Judaic law, life, and practice, the "rabbis," took hold. What was the core, professional-like profile of members of this emerging cadre in the late second and early third centuries, when this group first attained a level of stable institutionalization (even if not yet well-established authority)? What views did they promote about the authoritative basis of their profile? What in their surrounding and antecedent sociocultural contexts lent prima facie legitimacy and currency to that profile? Geared to a nonspecialist readership, What Were the Early Rabbis? addresses these questions and consequently sheds light on eventual shifts in power that came to underpin Judaic communal life, while Christianity and Islam "Judaized" non-Jews under their expansive hegemonies.

Opened up by the revival of Classical thought but riven by the violence of the Reformation and Counter Reformation, the terrain of Early Modern law was constantly shifting. The age of expansion saw unparalleled degrees of internal and external exploration and colonization, accompanied by the advance of science and the growing power of knowledge. A Cultural History of Law in the Early Modern Age, covering the period from 1500 to 1680, explores the war of jurisdictions and the slow and contested emergence of national legal traditions in continental Europe and in Britannia. Most particularly, the chapters examine the European quality of the Western legal traditions and seek to link the political project of Anglican common law, the mos britannicus, to its classical European language and context. Drawing upon a wealth of textual and visual sources, A Cultural History of Law in the Early Modern Age presents essays that examine key cultural case studies of the period on the themes of justice, constitution, codes, agreements, arguments, property and possession, wrongs, and the legal profession.

This is a book on “equity in the civil law tradition” from the double perspective of legal history and comparative law. It is intended not only for civil lawyers who want to better understand the role and history of equity in their own legal tradition, but also – and perhaps more saliently – for common lawyers who are curious about why the history of equity has unfolded so differently on the continent of Europe and in Latin America. The author begins with the investigation of the philosophical foundations of the Western notion of equity in the teachings of Plato and Aristotle and of how their ideas affected the works of the great Attic orators (chapter 2). He then addresses the way in which Roman law turned this notion into a legal concept of considerable practical importance (chapter 3) and how it survived the fall of Rome and was later elaborated in the Middle Ages by civilists and canonists (chapter 4). Subsequently, the author analyses how the notion of equity was dealt with in the Modern Era by legal humanists, Protestant and Catholic theologians, scholars of the usus modernus pandectarum and of Roman-Dutch law, and then by legal rationalism and the philosophers of the Enlightenment (chapter 5). He then deals with the history of equity on the continent since the fragmentation of the ius commune and the codifications of the nineteenth century and with its reception in Latin America (chapter 6). Finally, the author offers some closing remarks on the fundamental equivocalness (or relativity, as some scholars put it) of the notion of equity in the civil law tradition today (conclusion).

A new reconstruction and edition of the Placita of Aëtius (ca. 50 CE), arguably the most important work of ancient doxography covering the entire field of natural philosophy. Accompanied by a full commentary, it replaces the seminal edition of Herman Diels (1879).