How were laws made and enforced in ancient rome?

Answer 1

The Roman population was divided into two classes: the Senate and the People (as seen in the famous abbreviation for "Senatus Populusque Romanus", SPQR). The People consisted of all Roman citizens who were not members of the Senate. Domestic power was vested in the Roman People, through the Centuriate Assembly (Comitia Centuriata), the Tribal Assembly (Comitia Tributa) and the Plebeian Council (Concilium Plebis). The two Assemblies passed new laws, as did the Council, which also elected Rome's magistrates. The Senate did not have lawmaking powers, it only made recommendations to the Plebeian Council.

Nevertheless, the Senate held considerable clout (auctoritas) in Roman politics. It was the official body that sent and received ambassadors, and it appointed officials to manage public lands, including the provincial governors. It conducted wars and it also appropriated public funds. It was the Senate that authorized the city's chief magistrates, the consuls, to nominate a dictator in a state of emergency. In the late Republic, the Senate chose to avoid setting up dictatorships by resorting to the so-called senatus consultum ultimum, which declared martial law and empowered the consuls to "take care that the Republic should come to no harm".(1)

Praetors would have enforced the laws (2). This itself created problems as the Romans did not have a tendency towards codified law. he first legal text the content of which is known to us in some detail is the law of the twelve tables. It was drafted by a committee of ten men (decemviri legibus scribundis) in the year 449 BC. The fragments which have been preserved show that it was not a law code in the modern sense. It did not aim to provide a complete and coherent system of all applicable rules or to give legal solutions for all possible cases. Rather, the twelve tables contain a number of specific provisions designed to change the customary law already in existence at the time of the enactment. The provisions pertain to all areas of law. However, the largest part seems to have been dedicated to private law and civil procedure.

In time, the adaptation of law to new needs was given over to juridical practice, to magistrates, and especially to the praetors. A praetor was not a legislator and did not technically create new law when he issued his edicts (magistratuum edicta). In fact, however, the results of his rulings enjoyed legal protection (actionem dare) and were in effect often the source of new legal rules. A Praetor's successor was not bound by the edicts of his predecessor, however, he did take rules from edicts of his predecessor that had proved to be useful. In this way a constant content was created that proceeded from edict to edict (edictum traslatitium).

This created such a hoard of case by case laws that the emperor Justinian (4) finally gave orders to collect legal materials of various kinds into several new codes which became the basis of the revival of Roman law in the Middle Ages. This revived (& much simplified) Roman law, in turn, became the foundation of law in all civil law jurisdictions.

Answer 2

In the most ancient Rome, the laws were traditional, but not written down. The plebes (lower, not senatorial, classes) rose up in rebellion to this. The senatorial classes (patricians) knew the law and did not let the others know it. Very early in the Roman republic, the senate agreed that the laws should be inscribed on 12 tables of bronze. Then, every one could know it.

After that, there was a period of chaos in which no one knew what new laws had been added since then. A few men wrote books collecting all the more recent laws together. Finally, as late as AD 438 in Constantinople, the Eastern Roman Emperor Theodosius II issued a code of the Roman Law. This law code influenced the barbarian nations who were invading the Roman Empire at that time. Finally, about AD 527, Justinian I issued a "final" codification of Roman law.

Answer 3

i think it was the "randomly" chosen senate. But im not sure.