About the Influence of Greek Laws on Roman Law. Two Voices for Discussion

Abstract

After the conquest of the Peloponnese Peninsula by the Romans, Greek thought invaded the Empire, first and foremost in the field of art, philosophy and literature. Or also in the field of law? Two untranslated into Polish publication are hidden behind the title voices. Both move the issue of influence of Greek laws on Roman law, coming from the knowledge of law sources, as well as from modern scientific language and method, which are to be useful for describing a complex history of Greek-Roman legal relations. Both publications are extremely different in theses, reasoning and conclusions. In the first one, a new model of narrative transculturation (borrowed from Ibero-American anthropology and literary criticism) is proposed for interpretation of Greek-Roman relations, the second one stands guard over legal isolation of the Romans. Due to the limited size of this article, my purpose is not to judge the substantive content of the aforementioned publications, but to present them briefly. Both works prove the fact that the discussion about the influence of Greek laws on Roman law continues.