Roman law in legal and non legal writings with Maren Niehoff and Ulrike Babusiaux
Roman law is often studied through juristic writings, imperial legislation, and legal compilations. Yet legal ideas also permeated a much broader range of texts, from philosophy and rhetoric to history, Jewish literature, and early Christian writings. Inspired by the conference Roman Law in Non-Legal Writings: Romans, Greeks, Jews and Christians, held in Munich in February 2026, this episode explores how these non-legal sources not only reflected Roman law but also participated in shaping legal knowledge and authority.
Together with Professors Ulrike Babusiaux and Maren Niehoff, we discuss how legal concepts travelled across intellectual, religious, and social boundaries, becoming part of a shared cultural language. The conversation examines the relationship between law and narrative, the transmission of legal ideas beyond professional jurists, and the implications of these processes for understanding legal pluralism in the Roman world. More broadly, the episode invites us to reconsider Roman law not simply as a body of rules, but as a dynamic cultural phenomenon embedded in the wider intellectual life of antiquity.
2 Jul 2026
The judgment of the provinces. Law and society in the Roman world with Ari Bryen
This episode explores Ari Z. Bryen’s The Judgment of the Provinces: The Roman Empire and the Origins of Law and Society, a provocative reassessment of the relationship between law, society, and imperial power in the Roman world. Challenging traditional views of Roman law as a centralized system imposed from above, Bryen argues that law functioned as a shared language through which provincial populations interpreted authority, negotiated legitimacy, and reflected on the nature of empire itself.
The conversation examines how legal documents, archives, courts, petitions, and trial narratives became sites of political and social meaning-making across the Roman provinces. Particular attention is paid to Bryen’s concept of a “provincial political theory,” according to which ordinary subjects, local communities, and religious groups used legal discourse to formulate their own understandings of justice and governance.
The episode also follows the book’s broader narrative of transformation: from a world in which law was embedded in everyday social practice and public dialogue to one increasingly dominated by jurists, bureaucrats, and specialized legal expertise. In doing so, Bryen invites us to rethink not only Roman law, but also the historical relationship between law, power, and society more generally.
20 Apr 2026
Grotius, Ancient Law, and the Origins of International Law
This episode explores the relationship between Hugo Grotius’s legal thought and the emergence of international law in the context of early modern European expansion. Rather than presenting Grotius as a purely abstract theorist, the conversation highlights his role as a legal advisor to the Dutch East India Company (VOC) and shows how his ideas were shaped by concrete commercial and political conflicts in the East Indies.
A central focus of the episode is Grotius’s justification of alliances with non-Christian rulers, which challenged earlier theological prohibitions and provided a legal framework for Dutch cooperation with Asian polities. Drawing on natural law, as well as classical and Roman legal traditions, Grotius developed arguments that framed these alliances as legitimate instruments of both commerce and war. At the same time, the episode examines how these legal constructions were used to justify practices such as monopoly trade and military intervention.
The discussion ultimately reflects on the broader implications of Grotius’s work, suggesting that early international law emerged not as a neutral or purely universal system, but as a flexible legal language shaped by imperial expansion, legal pluralism, and the reinterpretation of ancient legal traditions.
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