Page:The City-State of the Greeks and Romans.djvu/267

might have ruined the new system, and disordered the relations between themselves and their subjects and neighbours. Every prætor issued a fresh edict on entering office, and it was in his power, if he chose, to drop all the rulings of his predecessors. Had he done this, the legal sanction of his jurisdiction would have had no fixity or credit. What he did was to adopt the edict of his predecessor in its entirety, expunging perhaps only such rulings as had been clearly inexpedient, and adding such others as his own good sense or his predecessor's experience suggested. Thus was formed by slow degrees a solid body of precedent, which had the force of law as issuing from the imperium. It was not law in the sense in which the Twelve Tables were law, but it was infinitely more valuable to mankind, and it was capable of almost endless expansion. It even came to be considered, in Sir H. Maine's words, "as a great, though imperfectly developed model, to which all law ought, as far as possible, to conform." And it was the immediate fruit of that love of work and attention to detail of which the oligarchy gave such splendid proofs in other departments of government; and when we blame them for hardness and materialism, for rapacity and cruelty, it is as well to remember that they made at least one discovery which was of great and lasting value. They found out that the law of the City-State was not equal to the needs of mankind in an age of increasing human intercourse; and that such intercourse could be governed by rules drawn from a wider range of