THE CONCEPT OF IUS PUBLICUM ROMANUM IN THE WRITINGS OF THE ITALIAN NOVELIST ANTONIO GUARINO

Abstract

This article is devoted to the political and legal views of the outstanding Italian novelist, lawyer Antonio Guarino, author of numerous works on topical issues of Roman law. Of particular value are his views on Roman public law, which were expressed in numerous monographs and articles: «L'ordinamento giuridico romano», «Il profilo del diritto romano» and «Lezioni di diritto romano pubblico», «Le nuove pagine di diritto romano».

In legal science, Roman public law was not studied as intensively as Roman private law, and this was due to objective factors: Roman lawyers left a wealth of scientific material in the field of civil law – and public law, due to its dependence on political processes, was considered superficially. The situation is also aggravated by the fact that we have few sources of a special nature at our disposal, with the help of which it would be possible to objectively investigate Roman public law. Therefore, we often have to turn to the philosophical treatises of Roman thinkers, which sometimes reflect their subjective ideas about the Roman rule of law and carry elements of idealism (Roman lawyers write about what the Roman rule of law should be, but it is important for us to study what Roman public law is in objective reality).

Taking into account the above factors, Professor Guarino makes efforts to highlight the issue of the emergence and evolution of Roman public law as objectively as possible, examining the maximum number of special sources (official acts of state bodies of the Roman Empire).