The Regula as a Rhetorical Device in Roman Law - (Legal History Library) by Olga Tellegen-Couperus & Jan Willem Tellegen (Hardcover)

About the Book

In this book, twenty regulae in title D. 50.17 of Justinian's famous Digest are argued to be not legal rules as has long been believed, but rhetorical arguments originally designed for one particular case.

Book Synopsis

In this book, it is argued that twenty regulae in title D. 50.17 of Justinian's Digest are not the legal rules that scholarly wisdom has long held them to be, but are instead rhetorical arguments. As arguments, these regulae do not comfortably fit the modern perception of Roman law as a system and sometimes even appear to have no connection with law whatsoever. By explaining them in the context of rhetoric, and of Cicero's Topica especially, the authors identify and reconstruct the original tenor of these twenty regulae as well as that of the famous regula Catoniana, stating their case for a paradigm shift in the study of Roman law in the process.

About the Author

Olga Tellegen-Couperus, Ph.D. (1982), University of Amsterdam, is Associate Professor Emerita of Legal History at Tilburg Law School. She has published extensively on Roman law and rhetoric as found in the works of Cicero, Quintilian, and the classical Roman jurists.

Jan Willem Tellegen, Ph.D. (1982), University of Amsterdam, is Senior Lecturer Emeritus in Legal History at Utrecht Law School. He has published extensively on Roman law and rhetoric as found in the works of Cicero, Pliny the Younger, and the classical Roman jurists.