THE STUDY OF OLD GREEK LAW system, it is to be noted that "nothing of the customary law or next to nothing was introduced into the 'XII Tables' . . . only one or two of the laws ascribed to the kings reappeared in them. . . . Neither were any of the laws of the republic anterior to the 'Tables' embodied in them. In saying, therefore, that for the most part the pro visions of the decemviral code were of na tive origin all that is meant is that they were the work of the decemvirs themselves, operating upon the hitherto unwritten law in the direction already indicated" (Muirhead, R. L. p. 99). Though the codifica tion of the laws in late Roman history is essentially Roman and a Roman stamp was put on its legal inheritance, yet through the sister Greek came the basal precepts of the Roman jurisprudence. But until recently Greek law has not appeared in a codified form. The laws of Gortyna, in Crete, discovered in 1884, have furnished a partial basis for a systematic and unbiased consideration of the Hellenic legal mind as manifested in direct legisla tive enactment. The lack of a code and commentaries on Greek jurisprudence simi lar to the valuable work of Gaius in Roman law, noted above, has been an obstacle to the study of Hellenic law; for only by a great expenditure of time can the Greek law be obtained by careful study and more careful comparison of the statements of orators in actual speeches, in cases which are not always clear and are often filled with prejudiced interpretations, adapted to the object uppermost at the moment in the mind of the partisan exponent whose sole -desire is to win his case. A recently con
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cluded study of the Greek law of Inheri tance, so far as relates to the title of "Adop tion," has revealed to us, the vast legal treasure buried in those old speeches and has convinced us that the tenacious toiler will come to a mine not only unworked but practically inexhaustible. When Rome was still herding its migra tory flocks and native land meant little more than the limits of the people's pastur age, even then, Greece, the land where Reason reigned, had sought fuller comfort and self-sufficiency in groups greater and higher than those of the family; her Reason formed her peoples into those little citystates, guided by the persuasions of Law; and that law was no longer the command of the father-chief; nor the superstitious reverence which the altar-worship won; nor even the expression of a monarch's whim; but the Law of the Land, which emanated from the people's self, benefiting the might iest because it protected the humblest. And so to little Hellas, as to no people before her day, National Law owes its origin and first application to human society. Notwithstanding, therefore, the difficulties involved in a satisfactory investigation of the principles and practice of Greek law, its close relation to the Roman codes as well as its own value as the First National Law in the history of the world, should lend interest and offer profit not only to the classical student and the general historian, but incite the jurist and student of legal history to a close study of the various ar ticles of this system of jurisprudence. WOONSOCKET, R. I., Dec., 1904.
