The Edicts of the Praetors: Law, Time, and Revolution in Ancient Rome

Abstract

This paper revises current understandings of judicial edicts in ancient Rome—the annually published texts in which Roman magistrates set out theformulaeaccording to which they would institute trials during their year in office. While standard accounts see these edicts as the work of legal specialists, heretofore neglected sources for how contemporaries talked about these texts suggest that they were indeed the work of the magistrates that issued them. At times these magistrates formulated new provisions; for the most part they selectively drew on past edicts, not least to accommodate the demands of their friends and clients. These patterns in compositional practice can only be understood within the framework of Roman political culture. More importantly, in their annually changing published form judicial edicts emerge as crucial objects in the construction of time in ancient Rome. Arguably, they constituted a legal practice that could encompass revolution—at least for a year.