Marcus Antistius Labeo

Marcus Antistius Labeo (* approx. 54 BC; † approx. 10/11 AD) was a Roman lawyer and contemporary of the Emperor Augustus .

Life

Antistius Labeo was a son of the lawyer Pacuvius Antistius Labeo and came from a Samnite family from southern Italy. Under Augustus he was part of the senatorial opposition to the principate ( Suetonius , Augustus 54), but was nevertheless able to achieve the second highest office of the traditional political office career with the praetur ( Tacitus , Annalen 3,75,1). Augustus offered him a suffect consulate , which he refused ( Pompon. Dig. 1,2,2,2,47).

Alongside Ateius Capito , both of whom were trained by the pre-classical jurist Aulus Ofilius , Antistius Labeo is considered to be the most important representative of the early classical Roman law . Sextus Pomponius writes that Labeo was a pupil of Trebatius and that he devoted his life to studies, spending six months of the year in Rome with his students and six months of the year retiring to write books. In this way he published 400 volumes ( Pompon. Dig. 1,2,2,2,47).

While he represented conservative views in public law, he suggested numerous innovations in private law, but only represented more far-reaching reform proposals in isolated cases. Labeo enjoyed a great reputation among later lawyers due to many pioneering decisions and systematic achievements that set standards and thus exercised an influence on the legal history of antiquity that should not be underestimated.

The Proculian school of law emerged from among his pupils, named after its first head, the comparatively insignificant Proculus . Some researchers suspect that Labeo may have founded the school himself, which has not yet been proven. Sometimes this is attributed to the fact that the later namesake was the first lawyers who gave their lessons from a permanent educational institution ( statio ) and thus set an operating system in motion.

Like the politically highly active Masurius Sabinus , who, alongside Cassius Longinus, was a co-founder of the opposing Sabine school of law, Labeo was often cited as the guarantor of decisions of fundamental importance.

Works

Only a few fragments of quotes from later legal texts have survived from Labeo's once extensive work, which is said to have comprised over 400 books. The following titles are known:

• Libri de iure pontificio ('Books on Pontifical Law ') in at least 15 books,
• a commentary on the Twelve Tables Law of at least 2 books ,
• Responsa ("answers"), i.e. legal opinions on specific individual cases,
• Epistulae ("letters"), presumably on legal issues,
• Pithana ("probabilities"), despite the Greek title probably in Latin,
• at least 20 books of comments on individual edicts,
• at least 40 books posteriora , i.e. works published posthumously on various legal issues.

literature

• Michèle Ducos: Labeo (M. Antistius). In: Richard Goulet (ed.): Dictionnaire des philosophes antiques . Volume 4, CNRS Éditions, Paris 2005, ISBN 2-271-06386-8 , pp. 59-60
• Paul Jörs : Antistius 34 . In: Paulys Realencyclopadie der classischen Antiquity Science (RE). Volume I, 2, Stuttgart 1894, Col. 2548-2557.
• Jan Dirk Harke : Roman law. From the classical period to the modern codifications . Beck, Munich 2008, ISBN 978-3-406-57405-4 ( floor plans of the law ), § 1 no. 14 (p. 12).
• Heinrich Honsell : Roman law. 5th edition, Springer, Zurich 2001, ISBN 3-540-42455-5 , p. 15.
• Michael Stolleis (Ed.): Lawyers. A biographical lexicon: from antiquity to the 20th century , Munich 2001, p. 375f.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c} Jan Dirk Harke : Roman law. From the classical period to the modern codifications . Beck, Munich 2008, ISBN 978-3-406-57405-4 ( floor plans of the law ), § 1 no. 14 (p. 12).
2. ^ Franz Peter Bremer: The legal teachers and legal schools in the Roman Empire , published by I. Guttentag, Berlin 1868, pp. 68–71 (70); Georg Friedrich Puchta : The customary law , Volume I, 1828, p. 487 Note k.
3. ^ Heinrich Honsell : Roman law. 5th edition, Springer, Zurich 2001, ISBN 3-540-42455-5 , p. 15.