BOOK: Olga TELLEGEN-COUPERUS & Jan-Willem TELLEGEN, The Regula as Rhetorical Device in Roman Law [Legal History Library, 71, eds. Dirk HEIRBAUT, Matthew C. MIROW, Michelle MCKINLEY & C.H. VAN RHEE] (Leiden/Boston: Martinus Nijhoff/Brill, 2024), ISBN 978-90-04-71102-0, € 150,04

 

(image source: Brill)

Abstract:

In this book, it is argued that twenty regulae in title D. 50.17 of Justinian’s Digest are not the legal rules that scholarly wisdom has long held them to be, but are instead rhetorical arguments. As arguments, these regulae do not comfortably fit the modern perception of Roman law as a system and sometimes even appear to have no connection with law whatsoever. By explaining them in the context of rhetoric, and of Cicero’s Topica especially, the authors identify and reconstruct the original tenor of these twenty regulae as well as that of the famous regula Catoniana, stating their case for a paradigm shift in the study of Roman law in the process.

On the authors:

Olga Tellegen-Couperus, Ph.D. (1982), University of Amsterdam, is Associate Professor Emerita of Legal History at Tilburg Law School. She has published extensively on Roman law and rhetoric as found in the works of Cicero, Quintilian, and the classical Roman jurists. Jan Willem Tellegen, Ph.D. (1982), University of Amsterdam, is Senior Lecturer Emeritus in Legal History at Utrecht Law School. He has published extensively on Roman law and rhetoric as found in the works of Cicero, Pliny the Younger, and the classical Roman jurists. 

 Table of contents:

1 Introduction
1 The Research Topic: The Use of topoi and theseis in Legal Argumentation

2 Roman Law and Legal Science

3 The Two Histories of Roman Law

4 Romanist Research

5 Our Research


2 Cicero’s Topica and Trebatius Testa
1 Topos and Thesis

2 Cicero’s Topica

3 Cicero’s Topica and Aristotle’s Topike and Rhetorike

4 Cicero’s Topica and Roman Law

5 Cicero’s Topica and Trebatius Testa


3 Quintus Mucius Scaevola pontifex: Jurist and Orator
1 Scaevola’s Advocacy in the causa Curiana

2 The topos in maiore minus inest in D. 32.29.1


4 D. 50.17 De diversis regulis iuris antiqui – Introduction

5 The status coniectura: The topos causa
1 Ulpianus D. 50.17.13

2 Ulpianus D. 50.17.31

3 Ulpianus D. 50.17.35

4 Paulus D. 50.17.167.1

5 Paulus D. 50.17.180


6 The status definitio: The topos e contraria
1 Pomponius D. 50.17.7

2 Paulus D. 50.17.10

3 Paulus D. 50.17.29

4 Modestinus D. 50.17.195


7 The status definitio: The topos e consequentibus – Scaevola D. 50.17.88

8 The status definitio: The topos a repugnantibus
1 Ulpianus D. 50.17.4

2 Papinianus D. 50.17.74

3 Papinianus D. 50.17.75


9 The status qualitas: The topos comparatio
1 Ulpianus D. 50.17.9

2 Ulpianus D. 50.17.21

3 Gaius D. 50.17.113

4 Ulpianus D. 50.17.156.1


10 The status qualitas: ambiguitas
1 Pomponius D. 50.17.20

2 Iulianus D. 50.17.64

3 Marcellus D. 50.17.192.1


11 Paulus D. 50.17.1 and the regula Catoniana
1 Paulus D. 50.17.1.

2 The regula Catoniana

3 Primary Sources on the regula Catoniana
 3.1 The Five Texts in Title D. 34.7 De regula Catoniana

 3.2 The regula Catoniana Outside Title D. 34.7

 3.3 Texts Whose Wording Recalls the regula Catoniana


4 The regula Catoniana as a Dubious thesis

5 The regula Catoniana and D. 50.17.1


12 Conclusion
1 Cicero’s Topica and Trebatius Testa (Chapter 2)

2 Quintus Mucius Scaevola pontifex: Jurist and orator (Chapter 3)

3 The regulae in D. 50.17 (Chapter 4)

4 Coniectura (Chapter 5)

5 Definitio (Chapters 6–8)

6 Qualitas (Chapter 9)

7 Ambiguitas (Chapter 10)

8 D. 50.17.1 and the regula Catoniana (Chapter 11)

9 So Long to a Paradigm?


Bibliography

Index

More information here: DOI 10.1163/9789004711020.