Roman Jurists and the Crisis of the Third Century A.D. In the Roman Empire (original) (raw)

2001, Administration, Prosopography and Appointment Policies in the Roman Empire

In this paper I would like to discuss the following questions: did the crisis of the third century A.D. in the Roman Empire finish the strong position of jurists and juridically skilled bureaucrats at the Roman imperial court? Did this crisis usher in the end oftheir scholarly production? The period ofthe Severan dynasty, which preceded the Third Century crisis, has always been regarded as the great age of juridically trained administrators, when Rome's most noted jurists of all time, all of them equites. were appointed to important posts and dominated the imperial council. At least three of them, Papinian, Messius, and Ulpian, became praefecti praetorio'. Even though most of the praetorian prefects during the early third century were not lawyers, the influence of jurists was out of all proportion to their numbers and to the length of time during which they were praetorian prefects 2 • After about A.D. 240, however, original scholarly work of learned jurists almost vanished from the earth and military men took the lead in the imperial council and in other key positions. Why did this happen? Severan emperors regularly appointed two praetorian prefects, a military man next to a jurist or an administrator. This was just a matter of practical expediency, not a fixed system 3 • The jurists among the men they appointed belonged to a kind of learned group, within which the younger ones borrowed ideas from their predecessors and which produced books and treatises that have become classics' in Roman law. Most ofthem did not have any military expertise to speak of. They kept a balance between scholarship, private practice, and public service. Who were they? A preliminary remark must be made. It is difficult to distinguish juridically skilled administrators or bureaucrats from leamed jurists who carried out tasks in the public service. Unlike senators and knights who , 1. Crook, Consilium principis (New York 1975, 2nd ed.), 79. Messius was probab1y not Messius Saturninus. Benet Sa1way has convincingly argued that he was Messius Extricatus, who was a jurist, prefect of the grain supply (210) and a praetorian prefect (c. 212-215) in the Severan period. See B.