PROBLEMS IN ROMAN HISTORY 75 



property in Greece. The material lately illustrated by Wilken proves 

 that new researches may still be made. In the Roman field, instead, 

 there is nothing that can be in any way compared to this. No history 

 whatever on land property during the Republic is to be had, and if 

 we want to be sincere, we must admit we do not possess even a good 

 guide for the more ancient social and political institutions. We have, 

 it is true, ancient and diffused narratives on political struggles, which 

 are the foundation of a long series of modern manuals on law and 

 history. But such narratives are based on spurious material, and even 

 the treatises on Roman political law written by Mommsen (for the 

 period from the age of the kings to the beginning of the Punic wars) 

 is based upon falsified material. I do not insist on this point, as I 

 would find myself obliged to repeat demonstrations already given by 

 me elsewhere. I hope at any rate to be able soon to publish my 

 researches on the value of chronology, on the Fasti and on the public 

 law of the most ancient Roman people, in the only way in which it 

 can be really obtained, namely, through integrations and comparisons. 

 I say integrations and comparisons, since the study of public law and 

 of the social conditions of a nation cannot be made now, as in the 

 past, through the simple knowledge of the material relating to that 

 single people, no matter how minute and deep. If there is a matter 

 which should be deeply known by the student of ancient civilization, 

 it is the comparative history of the law of all peoples beginning from 

 the customs in the savage state, to the true and proper law of most 

 civilized people. Under this aspect Sumner Maine's researches, 

 though incomplete, have brought a greater advantage to studies, 

 than the pretentious works of many scholars of Roman Law. And 

 only by such comparison, to which must be added a good knowledge 

 of the classical material, shall we, some day, be the possessors of a 

 treatise on Greek public law, which is generally desired. And the 

 study of law and comparative sociology will evidently give us the 

 history of the ethic development of the classical world, which we lack, 

 and which is the surest foundation in order to understand the reasons 

 of political events. 



Fortunately for those who will apply themselves to the history 

 of law and of Greek and Roman social institutions, the Egyptian 

 papyri and the discovery of new inscriptions, which explain intimate 

 connections between the two great phases of ancient civilization, will 

 bring new and wished-for materials. Every one knows that an 

 institution like that of aurum coronarium, of the colonat, and of the 

 frumentationes , finds its precedents in the history of Samos, Miletus, 

 and Alexandria; and the original studies of Mitteis have shown what 

 quantity of material for deep researches there is in the comparison of 

 Roman with Hellenic laws. 



It looks as if the discovery of the papyri were destined to give 



