Ancient Law

In a former work I pointed out the number, costliness, and importance of these ceremonies and oblations among the Romans, and I insisted on their probable significance as the source of the peculiar fictions which cluster round early family law (‘Ancient Law,’ p.

That ancient family law is entangled with fictions has long been known.

Of this we may at least be certain, that all ancient societies regarded themselves as having proceeded from one original stock.

In the Lectures printed in this Volume an attempt is made to carry farther in some particulars the line of investigation pursued by the Author in an earlier work on ‘Ancient Law.

) the evidence furnished by the history of International Law that the notion of territorial sovereignty, which is the basis of the international system, and which is inseparably connected with dominion over a definite area of land, very slowly substituted itself for the notion of tribal sovereignty.

The slow generation of ideas in ancient times may first be adduced as necessary to the explanation of that great family of Fictions which meet us on the threshold of history and historical jurisprudence.

It will now be proper to consider in a general way what resources were available for Maine’s purposes when he wrote “Ancient Law,” or rather when he prepared and delivered the lectures of which it was a revised publication (“Early Law and Custom,” p.

Clearly the English materials were not in a fit state, when Maine was writing “Ancient Law,” to be used Edition:

As “Ancient Law” touches on a greater variety of matters than almost any modern book of serious learning which is not of an encyclopædic nature, I have perforce omitted some topics, not because they might not have been considered with profit by a person competent in them, but because I was not competent.