The Roman Empire's impact on modern law

Gladiators, Emperors, and Rhodes, oh my. You wouldn't be blamed for thinking those were the most important contributions of the Roman Empire. But if you were a subject living in Roman occupied Europe two millennia ago, you would have known that one of the most significant things the Empire did was make law. Welcome to my channel, today we are going to see how the Roman Empire made the law and how it changed the world. The year is 451 BCE and you are watching the Romans, and they have just finished conquering Italy and they are restarting to get bored of all the pillaging and raping, it's the patrician class, that's the rich landowners. They decide to give the people what they want, which is totalitarianism. Okay, maybe not the best gift, but you know, they had good intentions, seriously. Anyway, they gathered the old tribal laws and the customary practices and codified them into one easy tour document called the Twelve Tables. This set of laws created a public system of justice that applied to all citizens equally. Before this, only the rich could hire lawyers to interpret the law for them. But now everyone, well, almost everyone, could read the law and understand their rights and responsibilities. Now the Twelve Tables didn't cover every legal issue imaginable, and that's because there weren't twelve tables worth of legal issues back then. So there was still plenty of room for judges to interpret the law and apply it to new situations. And that's exactly what Roman jurists did for centuries. These jurists wrote extensively about Roman law, creating a rich body of literature that helped to develop and refine Roman legal principles. One of the most influential works of Roman legal literature is the Justinian Code, which was commissioned by the Emperor Justinian I in the 6th century CE. The Justinian Code was a comprehensive collection of Roman law that was intended to replace the outdated and scattered legal texts that were in use at the time. It consisted of four parts. The Institutes, which was a textbook for law students. The Code, which was a collection of imperial laws and decrees. The Digest, which was a compilation of legal opinions from jurists. And the Novelae, which was a collection of new laws. The Justinian Code became the standard legal text for lawyers and judges throughout the Roman Empire, and it had a lasting impact on the development of law in Europe during the Middle Ages. And that's because while the Roman Empire was busy being the biggest, baddest empire in the world, it also had the great ambition of spreading the word about, well, itself. And so Roman law spread across Europe, becoming the dominant legal system in many regions. The Romans even set up law schools in cities like Bologna and Paris, which became centers for the study of Roman law and helped to transmit Roman legal principles to future generations. And unlike the gladiators and emperors and Rhodes, oh my, that stuff didn't disappear when the Roman Empire fell. In fact, Roman law continued to influence the development of legal systems in medieval Europe, and it contributed to the formation of both common law and civil law, which are two of the most important legal traditions in the world today. So whether you read a lawyer arguing a case in court or a student learning about the justice system, you have the Roman jurists to thank for a lot of what you know and use today. So next time you reattempt to dismiss Roman law as something that only applies to dusty old ruins, remember that it's alive and well in our modern world. Thanks for watching. Subscribe for more.