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

BUIS, EMILIANO JERÓNIMO

Entanglements in Legal History. Conceptual Approaches

Max-Planck Institut für europäische Rechtsgeschichte

Lugar: Frankfurt am Main; Año: 2014; p. 151 - 185

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 few points of 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 contradicts blatantly 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 (architecture, sculpture, literature, religion, politics, inter alia multa), in order to "translate" and adapt new forms and structures in accordance with their own Weltanschauung and their own interests. What is more, those who have been willing to acknowledge some kind of interaction tend to justify their view on the existence of ancient testimonies dealing with a Roman embassy to some Greek poleis (apparently decided through a plebiscitum in 454 BC) to study their legislation and become inspired by them. According to other sources, the return of the embassy allowed the work of the decemviri and the preparation of the XII Tables. This narration is, of course, heavily criticized from a historical point of view and the argument put forward by these authors is therefore rejected. 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. Far from relying on mythical tales on possible influences, 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 above-mentioned problem.