Next to the Bible, Shakespeare, the French revolution and Napoleon, ancient Rome is one of the most plowed-through fields of historical experience. One of the truly great periods of history, Rome, over the centuries, deservedly has attracted the passionate attention of historians, philologists and, more recently, archeologists. Since Roman law constituted the source of the legal life of most of Western Europe, the legal profession had a legitimate interest. Veritable libraries have been built around the history of Rome. In the past confmed mostly to Italian, German, and French scholars the...