Page:English Historical Review Volume 35.djvu/68

 60 ROMAN LAW AND THE January logical conclusion of exempting the princeps from the action of the laws. In his notes upon the sixth section of the second chapter of the first book of Justinian's Institutes one may read : Sic, auctore Accursio, ait vires populi datas esse principi et in principeni . . . nee vero ullo alio distat populus a principe, quam quod populus suis legibus tenetur, princeps legibus solutus est. Caeterum ut suis, ita et, principis legibus populus tenetiu:. Principem igitur populus quum vice sua constituit et se principis legibus obligavit. Here is political doctrine with a vengeance, one may be tempted to exclaim ; further study, however, modifies the con- clusion, for in his lectures on the Digest is to be found the telling disclaimer of any such intention. Hodie principes non simt soluti legibus, quod est certissimum, quoniam iurant in leges patrias in quas olim non iurabant.^ Francois Connan, the pupil of Alciat, carries the moderation of these supposed despotism-mongers a stage further. His argument takes the Lex Regia as its text. There were, he points out, some who said that after the transference of power accomplished by this 'law' the princeps had been left with precisely the same authority which before had been vested in the populus. This being so, no legislative or administra- tive act was within the prince's scope unless it had senatorial ratification. With this view Connan could not agree. It did not square with the dictum of Ulpian. Nor was his doubt removed by the suggestion that as princeps senatus the emperor might claim to represent the senate. The transference to his mind was entire and complete. The princeps in no way shared his authority. The uncontrolled authority of the emperor dated from the reign of Augustus. Quodcunque igitur imperator, inquit Ulpianus,* per epistolam et subscriptionem statuit, vel cognoscens decrevit vel de piano interlocutus est, vel edicto praecepit, legem esse constat. Hae sunt quas const itti- tiones vulgo appellamus. Of course no considerations of this kind could absolve the princeps from the binding principles of the law of nature. By these he and the citizens alike were bound by so strong an obligation that disregard upon his part might end in a duty of resistance ut si qui iusta haereditate rex est, tyrannicos mores induat, divina atque humana iura pervertat, suorum non salutem petat sed sanguinem, eiiciendus regno est, dum id fiat, rex est nee attentandus a quoquam est, nisi com- » See Digest, 1. 4. 1. 1.
 * Ad titulum Digeatorum de hist, et Jure : Ad legem v.