Page:The Ancient City- A Study on the Religion, Laws, and Institutions of Greece and Rome.djvu/511

 CHAP. II. THE ROMAN CONQUEST. 505 were laws between bira and tbose tbat be governed, be bad to make tbeni himself, for be alone could bind bira- Belf. Tberefore the imperiian witb wliicb be was clothed included the legislative power ; and thus it happened that the governors bad the right, and estab- lished the custom, on entering the provinces, of pub- lishing a code of laws, whicb they called their Edict, and to which they morally promised to conform. But as the governors were changed annually, these codes changed every year, for the reason tbat the law had its Bouice only in the will of the man who was for the time invested with the iniperium. Tiiis principle was so rigorously applied that, when a judgment had been pronounced by a governor, but had not been entirely executed at the time of his departure from the province, the arrival of bis successor completely annulled this judgment, and the proceedings were recommenced.^ Such was the omnipotence of the governor. lie Avas tbe living law. As to invoking the justice of Rome against his acts of violence or his crimes, the provin- cials could not do this unless they could find a Roman citizen who would act as their patron ;^ for, as to them- selves, they had no right to demand the protection of tbe laws of the city, or to appeal to its courts. They were foreigners; the judicial and official language called them pere grim / all that the law said of the hostis con- tinued to be applied to them. The legal situation of the inhabitants of the empire appears clearly in the writings of the Roman juris- consults. We there see that the people are considered as no longer having their own laws, and as not yet hav- ing those of Rome. For thorn, tberefore, the law ' Gaius, IV. 103, 105. » Cicero, De Orat., I, 9.