Page:Select Essays in Anglo-American Legal History, Volume 1.djvu/602

 588 IV. THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Still, after making all allowance for these provincial varia- tions, philosophic jurisprudence and a levelling despotism had done their work, and given to the civilized world, for the first and last time in its history, one harmonious body of legal rules. The causes which enabled the Romans to achieve this result were, broadly speaking, the five following : — (1) There was no pre-existing body of law deeply rooted and strong enough to offer resistance to the spread of Roman law. Where any highly developed system of written rules or customs existed, it existed only in cities, such as those of the Greek or Graecized provinces on both sides of the Aegean. The large countries, Pontus, for instance, or Macedonia or Gaul, were in a legal sense unorganized or backward. Thus the Romans had, if not a blank sheet to write on, yet no great difficulty in overspreading or dealing freely with what they found. (2) There were no forms of faith which had so interlaced religious feelings and traditions with the legal notions and customs of the people as to give those notions and customs a tenacious grip on men's affection. Except among the Jews, and to some extent among the Egyptians, Rome had no religious force to overcome such as Islam and Hinduism present in India. (3) The grant of Roman citizenship to a community or an individual was a privilege highly valued, because it meant a rise in social status and protection against arbitrary treat- ment by officials. Hence even those who might have liked their own law better were glad to part with it for the sake of the immunities of a Roman citizen. (4) The Roman governor and the Roman officials in gen- eral had an administrative discretion wider than officials en- joy under most modern governments, and certainly wider than either a British or an United States legislature would He also su>?gests that the opposition, undoubtedly strong:, of the Eastern Monophysites to the Orthodox Emperors at Constantinople may have contributed to make the Easterns cling the closer to their own custom- ary law. The Syrian book belongs to the fifth century a. d., and is therefore earlier than Justinian (Bruns imd Sachau, Syrisch-romisches Rechtsbuch aus dem fiinften Jahrhundert),