who was not a delator could be. Pliny mentions another Sabinian contemporary,' Urseius Ferox, whose answer to a friend struck him as learned and hesitating. He seems to have heard Sabinus, and Salvius Julianus addressed him.

Besides his work as a legislator, Julianus was a voluminous writer. Out of his ninety books "Digestorum," fifty-eight dealt with the topics of the prætor's edict, and were completed under Hadrian; the rest were written under Antoninus Pius. Hadrian was careful that his legislation should hamper the activity of learned lawyers as little as possible. He laid down the principle that every senator who had served the office of prætor had ipso facto the jus respondendi, which since the days of Augustus had been confined to such lawyers as had received an express imperial authorization. Moreover, he made the privilege more valuable, as well as more accessible, by decreeing that the unanimity of jurisconsults should have the force of law, while when they differed the judge was at liberty to follow which he pleased, so that he followed one. Other important contemporaries of Julianus were L. Fulvius, Alburnius Valens, and Sextus Pomponius, prætor A.D. 138, who wrote an interesting little tract on the history of Roman law and magistracies, which survives in a mutilated shape in the "Digest." We have also an interesting quotation from the seventh book of his letters, where he says that up to his seventy-eighth year he had thought learning the only reason for living. He wrote a handbook and thirty-five books of Commentaries on Sabinus. M. Vindius Verus, consul a.d. 138, was a follower of Julian. Sex. Cæcilius Africanus, who was a correspondent of Julian, wrote admiringly of the twelve tables, and composed nine books of questions. Terentius Clemens was one of the first writers to devote himself to the working of the Leges Julia et Papia Poppaa on the interesting subject of inheritance. He was followed by Junius Mauricianus (a pupil of Julian), who wrote on the same subject, and also on penal law; by Venuleius Saturninus, who wrote

2

1 "Ep." I. xxii. 1.

Correspondence on legal questions formed a large section of many lawyers' works.

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on all points of practice; and by L. Volusius Macianus, who conducted the legal education of M. Aurelius, and wrote on trusts (then a branch of the law of inheritance) and on the Judicia Publica. Ulpius Marcellus wrote, under M. Aurelius, thirty books" Digestorum," and one "Responsorum." Gaius, who did not possess the jus respondendi, wrote, besides his Institutes," which were published A.D. 161, seven books on daily practice that were called golden, and six books on the twelve tables, beside works on the law of trust and inheritance. He seems to have been a native of the eastern parts of the empire, and, according to Mommsen, lived and taught all his life in the Troad. Cervidius Scævola was even more important than Gaius, for he was the tutor of Papinian. His forty books "Digestorum" were written after the death of M. Aurelius, who is quoted under his official title as Divus Marcus. Papirius Justus, about the same time, wrote twenty books on imperial constitutions. Æmilius Papinianus studied with the emperor Septimius Severus under Cervidius, and was appointed by him prætorian prefect: he was massacred A.D. 212. His works date from the reign of Severus: he wrote nineteen books of " Answers" and thirty-seven of "Questions," besides works on the law of marriage, inheritance, adultery, and police. Callistratus, whose fragments are full of Græcisms, wrote four books on the rights of the exchequer, and two of "Questions" under Severus, and a work on procedure under Severus and Caracalla. A Claudius Tryphoninus wrote on Scævola's "Digest." Domitius Ulpianus, of Tyre, who was assassinated A.D. 228, during a military revolt under Alexander Severus, wrote his voluminous works under Caracalla. There were eightythree books on the Edict, fifty-one on Sabinus, a book of "Rules," and two of "Institutes," which we still have in fragments. His work "De Excusationibus" dates from A.D. 211. Julius Paulus was also prætorian prefect under Alexander Severus, but survived him: though he belonged to the western half of the empire, he is a worse writer than Ulpian. He wrote eighty books on the Edict and five books on sentences (a manual for his son) before A.D. 212. The three books on "Decrees" were earlier; his "Responsa" date between A.D.

222 and 235. Ælius Marcianus, among other works, composed six books of "Institutions." Herennius Modestinus, who also is cited in the "Digest," was præfectus vigilum, or head of police, A.D. 244

PART VII.

FRONTO AND HIS SCHOOL.

CHAPTER I.

FRONTO.

As Cicero stands at the head of one literary period, Seneca of another, Quinctilian of another, so Fronto stands at the head of a period too: he is at once the lawgiver and the example of his associates and successors. We are in a position to judge accurately of the claims of Cicero and Seneca; even Quinctilian's reputation is intelligible: he was an admirable if a wearisome stylist, and it is easy to believe that he was yet more admirable as a teacher. But Fronto is completely inexplicable he was regarded in his own day as a rival to Cicero, to whom even Pliny the Younger could only rank as a successor, and his reputation lasted quite as long as that of others; he had a great name in the fifth century. Most of his works are lost, and there is nothing in his fragments to explain his celebrity.

He came at an unfortunate time: his pupil, Marcus Aurelius, wrote his private meditations in Greek; and, in fact, it may be said that, from the reign of Hadrian onwards till the translation of the empire to the East, the intellectual needs of the capital, such as they were, were supplied by the eastern half of the empire; all the upper classes learned Greek in the nursery, and it was the language of fashionable conversation. Even as far back as the days of Claudius, a barbarian chief, who had learned Latin and Greek, could be congratulated by the emperor on his knowledge of "our tongues." All people

who professed to be serious entertained a Greek philosopher: their only reason for keeping up Latin literature at all was that the cleverest people who had received a literary education wished to be poets or historians or orators—an ambition which was sustained by the competitions endowed by Domitian, and by the professorships which were founded by his predecessors and successors. Another cause, whose operation was still more transitory, was the revival of spirits among the aristocracy on the death of Domitian. They felt that it had been unsafe to think or speak, and during the reign of Trajan oratory and history were zealously cultivated, and everybody played at poetry.

Besides, for those who could not be idle, there was a more serious work provided by Hadrian's legislation. From the reign of Augustus jurists had shown an increasing inclination to write, but their works had not been systematic; each had dealt with the particular department of case law which happened to attract him. But matters altered after the decision of Hadrian that the city prætors should lose the right, which their predecessors had enjoyed, of laying down the law according to their own sense of equity by the edict which they published on coming into office.

Henceforth all prætors were to act upon the same standing edict, which was called the edictum perpetuum, and the process of modifying and improving the law passed from the hands of judges into the hands of writers of text-books, who were at liberty to prove that the edict meant whatever it ought to mean. Henceforward a great lawyer could only hope to make himself felt as the writer of a text-book, and not as a judge, and consequently Roman law competed more and more severely with Latin literature.

But there was one province where the aspirations of the literary class could appeal to an unexhausted public. Pleaders, Juvenal tells us, had a better chance of a living in Africa than Rome, and as the tribes of the Atlas had been effectually repressed, the commercial importance of Carthage steadily increased throughout the second century. Its administrative importance made it the centre of a kind of literary culture,