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Legal History Commons

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SelectedWorks

2010

Ancient History, Greek and Roman through Late Antiquity

Articles 1 - 2 of 2

Full-Text Articles in Legal History

Remarks On David Daube’S Lectures On Sale, With Special Attention To The Liber Homo And Res Extra Commercium, Ernest Metzger Jan 2010

Remarks On David Daube’S Lectures On Sale, With Special Attention To The Liber Homo And Res Extra Commercium, Ernest Metzger

Ernest Metzger

This article discusses a collection of lecture notes on the Roman law of sale prepared by David Daube for an advanced course conducted at the University of Aberdeen from 1954 to 1955. The article considers in detail Daube’s lecture on the sale of the liber homo and res extra commercium in Roman law. An excerpt from that lecture is attached as an Appendix. His treatment of the subject is unfinished (and unpublished), though it is possible to see how his views might have developed. The final section offers an opinion on Daube’s approach to interpreting texts and its value to …


Civil Procedure In Classical Rome: Having An Audience With The Magistrate, Ernest Metzger Jan 2010

Civil Procedure In Classical Rome: Having An Audience With The Magistrate, Ernest Metzger

Ernest Metzger

During the classical period of Roman law, civil lawsuits were divided into two proceedings: a brief proceeding before the magistrate, who decided certain preliminary matters, and a longer proceeding before a judge, who tried the case. The first proceeding is said to take place “in iure,” which roughly means “in the magistrate’s court.” Unfortunately the figure “in court” has been understood too strictly to refer to the whole of the first phase, and this has given rise to the misunderstanding that the whole of the first phase took place in the magistrate’s presence. The better view is that the first …