Page:Select Essays in Anglo-American Legal History, Volume 1.djvu/594

 680 IV. THE NINETEENTH CENTURY ] duced.^ This was the method which the praetors followed at,. Rome, so the provincial governors had a precedent for it I and knew how to work it. Now the Edict seems to have con- tained, besides its provisions regarding the collection of revenue and civil administration in general, certain more specifically legal regulations, intended to indicate the action which the governor's court would take not only in disputes arising between Roman citizens, but also in those between citizens and aliens, and probably also to some extent in those between aliens themselves. Where the provisions of the Edict j vdid not apply, aliens would be governed by their own law. I In cities municipally organized, and especially in the more i civilized provinces, the local city courts would doubtless con- ' tinue to administer, as they had done before the Romans I came, their local civil law; and in the so-called free cities, which had come into the Empire as allies, these local courts f~ had for a long time a wide scope for their action. Criminal J law, however, would seem to have fallen within the gov- I ernor's jurisdiction, at any rate in most places and for the I graver offences, because criminal law is the indispensable I guarantee for public order and for the repression of sedition or conspiracy, matters for which the governor was of course responsible.^ Thus the governor's court was not only that which dispensed justice between Roman citizens, and which dealt with questions of revenue, but was also the tri- bunal for cases between citizens and aliens, and for the graver criminal proceedings. It was apparently also a court which entertained some kinds of suits between aliens, as for instance between aliens belonging to different cities, or in districts where no regular municipal courts existed, and (probably) dealt with appeals from those courts where they did exist. Moreover where aliens even of the same city chose to resort to it they could apparently do so. I speak of courts rather than of law, because it must be remembered that although we are naturally Inclined to think of law as cited above]. •In S. Paul's time, however, the Athenian Areopagus would seem to have retained its jurisdiction; cf. Acts xvii. 19. The Romans treated Athens with special consideration.
 * As to this see Essay XIV, p. 692 sqq. [in the Author's Studies, etc.,