Page:Harvard Law Review Volume 32.djvu/404

368 HARVARD LAW REVIEW absolutely different from that of his predecessors, the edict was as a matter of fact repeated by praetor after praetor, with only the edict necessarily underwent a considerable expansion. The jurist Papinian called these different purposes, which indeed are merely hinted at, the supplere, corrigerer, adjuvare jus civile, since he defines the law which is based on the praetor's edict as the jus qoud prcBtores introduxerunt adjuvandi vel supplendi vel corrigendi juris civilis gratia propter utilitatem publicam. "The edict was a result of the official power of the praetor. It was promulgated by the praetor upon his entrance into office as the program of his activity; it was in force for his official juris,diction and for his period of office. For the latter reason it was called the edictum perpetuum (annuum), in contradistinction to the edicta repentina, which were issued for purely temporary occasions. His edict was obligatory upon the prastor himself only since the lex Cornelia 687 A. u. c. (67 b. c). At the expiration of his term of office it expired automatically, for which Cicero calls it a lex annua. His successor promulgated a new edict. It was a matter of course that in his edict he reiterated those provisions of his predecessors which had been found adequate. Thus a solid nucleus of successive edicts was built up, which constitute the chief part of these edicts, the so-called edictum tralaticium. The actually new part of the formally new edict was limited to additions of greater or less significance {nova clausula, nova edicta). " In such manner the praetorian edict formed a sort of codification of the law, which had practical validity, since only that could be regarded as having practical vaUdity which had back of the power of the praetor as the upholder of his jurisdiction. This codification had the inestimable advantage of preserving on the one hand, the tradi- tional law as far as it had proven itself adequate; and, on the other hand, of being able to meet the new demands of a progressive society very easily, because of its annual renewal. It is plain that on accoimt of the difficulty of legislation by the comitia, the center of gravity of legislation for private law shifted over to the edict. The law which is based upon the edict is called jus honorarium, or jus pratorium, as the case might be. From the Roman point of view it is neither lex or legis vice. Its validity, in contradistinction to the lex is limited as to place to the jurisdiction of the official; and as to time, to his period of office. But it is really statutory law in the general sense, as discussed above, since it is in force only by virtue of the enactment of the official and not in the least as customary law. " The time of greatest development of the edict lay in the period of the Republic. It is true that the old magistracies with their jus edicendi survived during the period of the Empire, but they at once came to be dependent upon the princeps. For this reason the edict became rigid; new provisions became rare, and were imdertaken only in accordance with the approval of the pnnceps which were preiviously obtained. Hadrian caused a revision of aU the edicts to be undertaken by the jurist Salvius Julianus, about which we have scanty information from reports of a much later period. As Justinian tells us, the Emperor, by means of a senatus consuUum caused the forma- tion of this revised edict, which included the edict of the cediles, and the provincial edict as well as the praetorian edict. The legal character of the edict was not altered thereby however. It was still in force from that time on as the edict of the magistrate and not as a senatus consultum. This senatus consultum had an administrative signi- ficance only. It enacted a standard edict and it obhged the magistrates to proclaim this alone as their edict, and to obtain from higher authority approval of such amend- ments as might be contemplated by them. For this reason the edict from this time on