ROME

This is the earliest surviving attempt of the Romans to formulate a legal code.

This is the earliest surviving attempt of the Romans to formulate a legal code.

This is the earliest surviving attempt of the Romans to formulate a legal code.

This is the earliest surviving attempt of the Romans to formulate a legal code.

Until very recently common law derived from this law allowed a thief on someone else’s property to be killed even with no danger to the property owner. In Texas and other jurisdictions the “unwritten” law would not convict such a killer for murder even if he came upon a trespasser who was stealing nothing. Today, the legal principle is that deadly force may only be used if the person reasonably believed his life was in danger and had no other means of escape.

This is the earliest surviving attempt of the Romans to formulate a legal code.

This is the earliest surviving attempt of the Romans to formulate a legal code.

This is the earliest surviving attempt of the Romans to formulate a legal code.

Roman law shaped European law for centuries. Even in the most dictatorial regimes of monarchies usually felt an obligation to avoid summary execution and have a trial, even if a crude, trumped up one involving torture of the accused. This Roman law had a long and profound influence.

Until very recently common law derived from this law allowed a thief on someone else’s property to be killed even with no danger to the property owner. In Texas and other jurisdictions the “unwritten” law would not convict such a killer for murder even if he came upon a trespasser who was stealing nothing. Today, the legal principle is that deadly force may only be used if the person reasonably believed his life was in danger and had no other means of escape.

This was the equivalent of 8.3 percent.

This is the earliest surviving attempt of the Romans to formulate a legal code.

The Roman emissary was called a fetialis. He would travel to the capital city of the enemy nation. It was customary for the fetialis to carry in his hand a javelin pointed with steel, or burnt at the end and dipped in blood. He would, after shouting the declaration, hurl the javelin into the enemy camp and only then war was declared.

This is the earliest surviving attempt of the Romans to formulate a legal code.

This is the earliest surviving attempt of the Romans to formulate a legal code.

This is the earliest surviving attempt of the Romans to formulate a legal code.

This is the earliest surviving attempt of the Romans to formulate a legal code.

This is the earliest surviving attempt of the Romans to formulate a legal code.

This is the earliest surviving attempt of the Romans to formulate a legal code.

This is the earliest surviving attempt of the Romans to formulate a legal code.

This is the earliest surviving attempt of the Romans to formulate a legal code.

This is the earliest surviving attempt of the Romans to formulate a legal code.

This is a fascinating several day holiday in that it not only was a time of required merriment, but all parts of society participated and the normal inequities of Roman society were “reformed” and eliminated for the holiday period. Thus it acted as a safety valve. Consider the notion that such a holiday were celebrated in the slave-holding South. It would not be possible. Roman slavery was understood by all to be a matter of luck and circumstances. Often slaves were much better educated than their masters or better businessmen or soldiers. American slavery was much more hypocritical where the whites created an intellectual justification of the slavery by the inferiority of the Blacks. Giving slaves “equal rights” for a holiday would collapse the edifice they had created. So it took a war to collapse it.