Lawyers in Administration

Abstract

This chapter provides an introduction to a full study of Roman lawyers in Roman administration. It argues that on the face of it, the presence, or not, of lawyers in Roman administration seems to have been a rather haphazard affair. Conversely, and perhaps even paradoxically, it is plain that legal expertise was indeed very widely and very often present in the Roman administrative apparatus. This makes a complete study of this phenomenon all the more urgent. Such an all-embracing picture of lawyers in administration would not ultimately tell us, beyond doubt, the exact degree to which a rule of law was tangibly established by the Roman state. Nevertheless, a proper synthesis, insofar as this is attainable, would yield a much better taste of what was attempted. For the time being, however, we still lack a comprehensive depiction of lawyers in administration for ancient Rome.