STUDI SULLA BIPARTIZIONE DEL PROCESSO PRIVATO ROMANO

The PhD thesis, titled “Studi sulla bipartizione del processo privato romano” (Studies on the bipartition of the Roman private trial), is entirely devoted to the structure of the Roman private trial during its early centuries of development. The trial per legis actiones and the trial per fomulas were in fact structured over two distinct phases: a phase – in iure – before the magistrate with iurisdictio and another one – apud iudicem – before a judge, usually a private citizen, invested with the power to decide the matter of the dispute. The theme, not taken into much depth by roman law scholarship, emerges in some studies devoted to other aspects of the trial. This thesis has highlighted the derivation of bipartition from the necessity, emerged towards the end of the monarchical era, to rationalize dispute resolution tools. Another issue is that of the relationship between law and religion in the Roman legal order: in the thesis it is argued that Roman law has never come to a clear separation of law and religion but, on the contrary, magic-religious elements, typical of the archaic era, still remain in preclassical and classical times, as it is evident in some law institutes, such as the sacramentum and the litis contestatio.