ABSTRACT
Needless to say, the actuality fell far short of the ideal. Penalties in Roman law were excessive and cruel. Slavery and class privilege were legal institutions; they cannot obtain otherwise. Equality before the law was limited to citizens, which meant only freemen; and a debtor risked slavery. This brutal and irrational view of debt, a false equation, sometimes caused alarming social disturbances; under political pressure, cancellation was resorted to by ex-post-facto legislation, a remedy which in particular instances was almost as unfair as the grievance, and only in lesser degree dangerous. To sentimentalize Roman law and gloss over its harsh and faulty aspects is to miss the point. Its solid virtue was its mere existence, since at worst it proved preferable to the unpredictable will of either king or people. In their ordinary conduct the Athenians were probably more humane, or easygoing, than the Romans; but the quality of Roman law was that it was dependable. Though the anecdote may have been invented as a joke which related that an Athenian voted for the banishment of Aristides because he was tired of hearing Aristides called The Just, the thing was not impossible by the democratic system. In Roman law a man must be charged with a specified act having known penalties, and convicted on something more positive than opinion, to incur sentence. He could not be guilty for no cause. A single instance, expressed by the most famous secular conversation in all his-tory, shows how Roman law created an empire, held it together, made it workable, and made it work.
