Law and Empire, AD 193-455: the Projet Volterra (1)

The general aims of the Projet Volterra (named after Edoardo Volterra, the distinguished scholar of Roman Law) are to promote the study of Roman legislation in its full social, political and legal context, and its continuing tradition. The area of Roman imperial legal pronouncements was identified as one in which current scholarship was less than adequately served in terms of Regesten, repertoria and bibliographical aids. Within this field the area of later imperial legislation was felt to be particularly poorly exploited by scholars in general. The project has worked to produce a database in an electronic medium which would act not only as a Regest but also contain the basic texts of imperial legal pronouncements (where the ipsissima verba survive) from whatever provenance, be it an epigraphic, papyrological, juristic or literary source, details relating to each text's transmission (including their fate during successive codifications), with details of ancient commentary and modern bibliography. While in no sense providing entirely new editions, the texts of laws included in the database are critical, including the checking of original manuscript readings where appropriate. The database is aimed at a wide range of scholars working in the broad areas of Roman law, late Roman history, and the Roman law tradition.