The course aims to provide in-depth knowledge of the historical, political, and legal evolution of ancient Rome, from its origins to Justinian. Through the analysis of institutional structures, social transformations, and the development of legal thought, students will acquire critical tools to understand the meaning and legacy of the Roman world and develop critical thinking in the examination of legal phenomena.
By the end of the course, students should achieve the following learning outcomes:
- clear knowledge of the conceptual and theoretical foundations of Roman history and law;
- ability to identify sources and interpret them in concrete situations, through the historical analysis of legislative texts and public and private acts, both negotiable and procedural;
- ability to argue and express one's thoughts clearly and using legal language;
- ability to use the specialized language of jurisprudence;
- ability to express the contents of the scientia iuris, developing a critical judgment on the main historical-legal dynamics analyzed during the course and using appropriate technical-legal language.
Minimal historical and geographical knowledge
Lectures, seminars, reading and commentary of sources (literary and legal)
Oral examination
L. CAPOGROSSI COLOGNESI, Storia di Roma tra diritto e potere, terza edizione, Bologna, Il Mulino 2023.
Recommended reading
E. STOLFI: Prima lezione di diritto romano, Bari-Roma, Editori Laterza 2023.
Introduction and Methodology: What, how, why: Periodization, Definitions, and key issues. Introduction to the heritage of the ancient World. Sources and historiography. The Origins of the Roman Political Community. The Genesis of the political community. City structures and archaic society. The Etruscan kings and the roman monarchy. The Roman Republic. The transition from monarchy to republic. The complete design of republican institutions. A governing aristocracy. The road to Italian hegemony. Expansion and transformation. From city to empire: conquests and territorial governance. The evolution of roman law and the development of legal science. The new horizons of the third century b.C. and mediterranean supremacy. The republican crisis and imperial transition. The major reforms and the crisis of the ruling class. Sulla's attempted restoration and the decline of the republic. The age of civil wars. The augustan age and the principate. The principate of Augustus: politics, society, and ideology. The developments of the new imperial order. Princely law and normative sources. The development of the new imperial order. Territorial structure and administration. Crisis and transformation: the third century AD and imperial responses. The dawn of a new world: christianization and reforms. The role of jurists from Diocletian to Justinian. Justinian's compilations and the legacy of Roman law.
Basic historical knowledge.
