Ancient Entanglements: The Influence of Greek Treaties in Roman 'International Law' under the Framework of Narrative Transculturation

BUIS, EMILIANO JERÓNIMO

Frankfurt am Main

Workshop; Entanglements in Legal History. Conceptual Approaches to Global Legal History; 2012

Max-Planck-Institut für europäische Rechtsgeschichte

The influence of Greek culture in Rome has been widely accepted in various aspects. Nevertheless, from a traditional legal point of view there seems to be very little contact between the two civilizations. In fact, legal historians have been reluctant to find possible interactions and have rather suggested that it was only with the Romans that a strong and systematic legal corpus could be built, something which had been unknown to the Greek spirit. I have always been amazed by this conviction, which blatantly contradicts what I consider to be one of the most outstanding features of the growing power of Rome: the permanent Roman intention to rely on Greek precedents in almost every social aspect of life and civic organization in order to "translate" and adapt new forms and structures in accordance with their own Weltanschauung and their own interests. My purpose in this paper is to overcome this debate by suggesting a new theoretical framework in order to understand the complex interaction of Greek law and the Roman legal system. I intend to apply the concept of "narrative transculturation", which I believe to be a convenient and original perspective (traditionally excluded from studies concerning legal history) to deal with the problem.