Introduction to Roman Law

The subject, on which I am to give you a few lectures, is the Civil Law—the Roman Law—its History and System. My desire, of course, is to give you all the information I can, in the very scanty time allowed to us. But I shall try to remember that you are hearers only, not readers; and that I must not pack the matter too closely; that I must avoid at once a brevity of statement which you would find unintelligible, and a multiplicity of details which you would find confusing and wearisome. The subject involves, almost of necessity, a good deal that is technical and dry: I could hardly expect that my lectures would receive place in a “Library of Entertaining Knowledge.” My reliance must be on the interest and importance of the theme itself, rather than on any attraction which .1 can hope to give it by my mode of treatment. That it has importance and interest, to the student of history and the man of liberal culture as well as to the expectant lawyer, will, I hope, be apparent as we proceed; I shall not try to prove it now...