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This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1913 edition. Excerpt:... 393), was much more extensively felt. But the looser method of making law was not, and could not be, superseded. 408. Legal administration at Rome was never sharply severed from public administration in other departments; in other words, No dear no clear distinction was ever maintained between magistrate jj'tw""'0" and judge. The creation of the 'praetura urbana' in 367 B.c. magistrate ( 33) was indeed a great event in legal history, but the andJudepraetor was never debarred from undertaking other public duties, nor were the consuls ever cut off entirely from legal business {ibid.). Authority (imperium) was not split into fractions for separate purposes. The Tribunes of the plebs, who rose to ascendency in the world of politics, also, by virtue of their 'intercessio', supervised the execution of the law, within limits imposed partly by statute, partly by custom ( 367). Even during the imperial period, there was no complete severance between legal and non-legal administration. Many orders issued by magistrates other than the praetor were practically legal in character, though not so regarded ( 357) 409. The great impelling force which induced the Republican praetors, by their edict, to make changes in the law, was public opinion. Whenever a reform was generally demanded, the magistrate p DEGREEStu" opinion made it without dispute. In these matters the old theoretic unlimitedness of the imperium was turned to practical use. So far as is known, the praetor's edict was never subjected to 'intercessio'. Whether this immunity rested on custom or on statute, cannot be decided. The particular changes demanded from time to time were determined by many streams of influence, by which the views of practical lawyers were...