Gaius

Gaïus was a lawyer of the 2nd century, author, in particular, Institutes . One knew already Gaïus with the Moyen-âge by the Digeste and by the Institutes de Justinien, inspired as of his. A long time one had of it only one summary which is in the Breviarium alaricianum , and, that one believes to be made by Anien, chancellor of Alaric II; but in 1816, Barthold Georg Niebuhr discovered about complete work in a Palimpseste of Vérone.

F. Bluhme, one of the scholars who got various editions of the work, used destroying chemical reagents, so that a apographe (copy of the manuscript) realized by Studemund (edition in 1874, edition re-examined in 1885) was used in the place of the manuscript by all the editors who came after Studemund

The mystery of Gaïus

One knows Gaïus only by his first name. Among the possible explanations, one can imagine that he was not Roman citizen, or that he was it recently. One can as imagine as one called it by his first name because it was very known, or that it was about a pseudonym. Certain historians even wondered whether it were not about a woman, because of the character Féministe of its work. Gaïus makes fun indeed of those which regard the women as completely “unable”.

Another matter of astonishment is that its immediate contemporaries and its successors do not quote it, it will however occupy a choice place in the legal literature of the following centuries, and in particular in the Digeste .

Its work

In addition to a comment of the edict of the praetor, and a comment of the Law of the twelve tables, the principal known work of Gaïus is a work intended for teaching: the Institutes . This handbook corresponds to one year of studies in the training of future lawyers. It obtained a considerable success because of the rationality of its presentation. Indeed Gaïus makes initially an introduction on the sources of the right. Then it organizes its matter in a tripartite plan: “All the right that we use pays either to the people, or with the goods, or with the actions”. This presentation is still that of the Civil code French (even plane tripartite) and of many handbooks of contemporary right, developing the distinctions between the people and the goods, or between the prone of the right, the objects of the right and the sanctions of the right.

The source of this rational organization is certainly the Greek Philosophie, which penetrated the Roman law. Cicéron, in its De Oratore wished that this link be established between Greek philosophy and the science of the right to Rome. Gaïus carries out the wish of Cicéron, by treating the whole of the right. It divides the legal categories into “kinds” and “species”.

Editions

Gaius, Institutes , text established and translated by Julien Reinach; Paris, Beautiful Letters, 1951, réimpr. 2003. (Enumerates p. XIII the editions after 1874 and former to 1951. For the editions former to 1875, returns to the ED. from Dubois, Paris, 1881. The pulling of 2003, p. XIX, adds editions and recent studies.)

References

Random links: