ABOUT IUS AND LEX AS SIDES OF THE SAME COIN
ABOUT IUS AND LEX AS SIDES OF THE SAME COIN

Summary/Abstract: During the twelve centuries, between the birth of Rome and the fall of the Western Roman Empire, Roman law underwent profound changes. The archaic law of the early days of Rome oscillated between ius and fas, before becoming secularized and autonomous. From the earliest days of the Republic, laws passed by popular assemblies appeared alongside customary norms. But it was truly at the end of the 3rd century BC that a major legal revolution occurred in Roman law, with the emergence of two new sources: praetorian law and iuris prudentia. These flexible, adaptable, and innovative sources reached their golden age in the final centuries of the Republic. With the advent of the Empire in 27 BC, administrative centralization and the concentration of power in the hands of the emperor gradually led to the emergence of a legal system in which law was now the attribute of the Prince. Imperial law gradually became the main source of law, and competing sources have faded into the shadows or disappeared. The last centuries of the Empire thus saw the crystallization of this imperial law through major official codifications.

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