Roman Law: Reading Group

Harvard Law School: 2223

Fall 2019

Charles Donahue

Meeting Time: Thu. 5:00 PM – 7:00 PM, WCC Room 3008

Professor Charles Donahue
1 classroom credit

Roman law had great influence on the legal systems of Continental Europe and less, but still significant, influence on the Anglo-American legal system. This reading group is “An Introduction to an Introduction to Roman Law”, in lieu of the three-hour course “An Introduction to Roman Law” (which cannot be offered this year). It will meet, basically every week, in the first half of the semester. We will read in translation Gaius’ Institutes, a textbook for first-year law students written in the second century of our era. We will use Hans Julius Wolff’s Roman Law: An Historical Introduction for background. No previous knowledge of either Latin or of Roman law will be presumed.

THE BOOKS

The books are H.J. Wolff, Roman Law: An Historical Introduction (Norman, 1951) and Gaius’ Institutes. Wolff is available in a paperback reprint which is quite cheap and worth buying. I thought that I asked the Coop to stock it, but apparently that went awry, but there are plenty of both new and used copies available online, and used copies should be available at local book sellers. Gaius was, of course, written in Latin, and of the many translations, I suggest that we use the one by Francis de Zulueta. I have posted it on this website. The posting is divided into two parts: Book 4 (‘procedure’) and Books 1–3 (persons, property, succession, obligations). They are in PDF format. (If someone would prefer to have them in Word format, let me know; I can give you a link.) For those who would like to take a crack at Gaius in Latin (which is certainly not required, but if you have any Latin, Gaius’ Latin pretty straight-forward), I’ve posted the entire text here.

PROPOSED SCHEDULE

Normally with reading groups, I have an organizational meeting at the beginning of the semester. At that meeting we discuss what we might do and what times would be convenient, and I go back and make up a schedule. This year, the registrar’s office wanted me to tie down proposed meeting times in advance, but one of the nice things about reading groups is that we can be flexible. I have prepared a proposed schedule and a series of topics, but both can changed if that’s what the group wants. The topics are bit different from the way in which I have sometimes done it in past in that we start Gaius in the first session and use Wolff as background reading. So far as the dates are concerned, I find that folks have difficulty keeping up with the reading if we meet in November.

Thu., 5 Sep. — Organizational Meeting. We’ll spend some time talking about the attached outline, which one wag has called “Everything that Professor Donahue knows reduced to one page.”

Thu., 12 Sep. — Gaius, Institutes, bk. I, §§ 1–7 (generalities about law and sources of law); Wolff, 1–48, Wolff, 91–126.

Thu., 19 Sep. — Gaius, Institutes, bk. IV (procedure); Wolff, 49–90, Wolff, 127–225.

Thu., 26 Sep. — Gaius, Institutes, bk. I §§ 8–199 (personal status).

Thu., 3 Oct. — Gaius, Institutes, bk. II §§ 1–96 (the law of ‘single things’ (roughly property)).

Thu., 10 Oct. — Gaius, Institutes, bk. II §§ 97–289 (testaments and legacies); bk. III §§ 1–87 (intestacy).

Thu., 17 Oct. — Gaius, Institutes, bk. III §§ 88–225 (obligations arising from contract and delict).

REQUIREMENTS

The reading group is graded on a pass/fail basis. You do not have to do much to pass. Please do come to class. (No unexcused absences, and I tend to be fairly strict about excuses.) Please do the readings. I expect that the members of the group will participate by saying something. Some members of the group will have had some exposure to the language, culture, and/or history of Rome. Some will not. But you all have had the first year of law school. Sometimes I have to talk myself, because the material is unfamiliar, but the name of the game is comparative, and you can all participate in that exercise. How is what Gaius is telling first-year law students of the second century of our era the same as, or different from, what you learned in the first year of law school? (Hint: there are both similarities and differences. The trick is to figure out what the balance is between the two.) If you want to write a short paper, I think you can get an extra credit, but that has to be graded.

OUTLINES

I do not expect that you will be able to make much sense out of the following outlines now. The first one outlines all of Gaius. The remaining ones take pieces of the big outline and assigns them to individual classes. When you have done the reading for a given class, you might want to look at the outline, and see if you can puzzle about the way in which Gaius structures the topic. We will be discussing these outlines in the classes.

Outline of All of Gaius’ Institutes

Introduction (class 1)

Procedure (class 2)

Procedure (in historical context and sample formulae) (class 2)

Persons (class 3)

Single Things (class 4)

Succession (class 5)

Obligations (class 6)