Hermogenian

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Aurelius Hermogenianus, or Hermogenian, was an eminent Roman jurist and public servant of the age of Diocletian and his fellow tetrarchs.[1]

Legal scholar

The compiler of the eponymous

Pandects.[4] The excerpts are reassembled according to an approximation of their original order in Otto Lenel's Palingenesia and an English translation can be constructed by reference to Watson's edition of the Digest.[5] It is clear from his last place in the index to the Florentine Digest, that Hermogenian belonged to the last generation of jurists exploited by Justinian's compilers. References to plural principes and imperatores in several Digest extracts from the Iuris epitomae are certainly consistent with a tetrarchic date.[6] It is probably on this work that his subsequent high reputation was based; the fifth-century author Coelius Sedulius calls Hermogenian a doctissimus iurislator ('most learned relator of the law') and it is probably of the Iuris epitomae (rather than the Codex) that the same author claims that he produced three editions.[7] By analysing the style of the surviving extracts of the Iuris epitomae Tony Honoré has identified Hermogenian also as the drafter of the emperor Diocletian's rescripts (replies to petitions) from the beginning of AD 293 to the end of 294, a task that would have been the job of the emperor's (procurator) a libellis or magister libellorum (master of petitions). These rescripts formed the core of his compilation of imperial laws, the single-book codex that bore his name, which was perhaps designed to function as a supplement to the Codex Gregorianus that itself had gathered up material from as far back as the emperor Hadrian. Certainly, the two works are closely linked in subsequent citations, the Hermogenian always after the Gregorian.[8]

Public servant

More recently the legal scholar has been identified with the Aur(elius) Her[mog]enianus, revealed as co-author with his senior colleague as praetorian prefect, Julius Asclepiodotus, of an inscribed dedication to Constantius as Caesar (AD 293/305), unearthed at Brixia (modern Brescia) in northern Italy in 1983.[9] At this stage, given his title vir eminentissimus (in contrast to his colleague's clarissimus), Hermogenian still belonged to the equestrian order. As happened to a number of senior equestrian prefects of the period,[10] at some point subsequently during Diocletian's reign, he was promoted to the senate, as witnessed by his tenure of the senatorial post of proconsul Asia, in which capacity he put up a dedication to Diocletian or his colleague Maximian at Ilium (Troy) sometime before 305.[11]

Benet Salway suggests identifying Hermogenianus with the Aurelius Hermogenes who served as praefectus urbi of Rome in 309–310, citing the possibility of a corruption in the text of the Chronograph of 354.[12]

Career

Correlating the ascertainable dates for his attested posts with their conventional hierarchical order, Hermogenian's known career has been reconstructed as follows:[13]

  • magister libellorum or
    a libellis
     (293–295)
  • praetorian prefect (295-?300)
  • publishes Codex Hermogenianus
  • proconsul of Asia (one or two years between 300 and 305)
  • publishes Iuris epitomarum libri VI

Legacy

According to Honoré,

Codex Justinianeus and his Iuris epitomae were excerpted for the Digest. In this form they became authoritative sources of law for the post-Justinianic empire and the revived medieval and early modern Roman law tradition based on the Corpus Juris Civilis
, in which his ideas were further developed by the natural law and historical schools of jurisprudence from the 17th century onwards.

Notes

  1. ^ a b Honoré, Anthony Maurice, "Aurelius (?) Hermogenianus", Oxford Classical Dictionary
  2. ISBN 978-0-521-07233-5
    , Hannibalianus 3.
  3. ^ Digest. 1.5.2 (Hermogenianus, lib. I iuris epit.): Cum igitur hominum causa omne ius constitutum sit, primo de personarum statu ac post de ceteris, ordinem edicti perpetui secuti et his proximos atque coniunctos applicantes titulos ut res patitur, diximus.
  4. ^ Liebs, Detlef (1964), Hermogenians Iuris Epitome, Göttingen{{citation}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link); Dovere, Elio (2005), De iure: l'esordio delle Epitomi di Ermogeniano, Naples{{citation}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link), with palingenesia, pp. 115–130.
  5. ISBN 978-0-8122-2036-0
    .
  6. ^ Digest. 28.1.41, 39.4.10, and 49.14.46.
  7. ISBN 978-3-7001-3681-1
    ), p. 172, lines 10–11: Cognoscant Hermogenianum, doctissimum iurislatorem, tres editiones sui operis confecisse.
  8. ISBN 978-0-19-825769-1
    , pp. 163–80, 191 – secretary No 20.
  9. JSTOR 20187130
    .
  10. ^ E.gg. T. Cl(audius) Aurelius Aristobulus (consul in AD 285; proconsul of Africa 290–294): Prosopographia Imperii Romani2 C 806, Prosopography of the Later Roman Empire, 1 Aristobulus; Pomponius Ianuarianus (consul in AD 288; urban prefect AD 288–289): PIR2 P 722, PLRE, 1 Ianuarianus 2; Afranius Hannibalianus (consul AD 292, urban prefect AD 297): PIR2 A 444, PLRE, 1 Hannibalianus 3.
  11. ISBN 978-3-7749-1211-3
    , No 98, with Tafel 19: [D(omino) n(ostro) p]rov[identissimo | ac] victor[iosissimo principi (or imp(eratori) Caes(ari)) | C(aio) (or M(arco)) A]urelio V[alerio Diocletiano or Maximiano pio | fe]lici Aug(usto) vac. | M(arcus)? A]ur(elius) Hermoge[nianus v(ir) c(larissimus) | pr]oconsul vac. [d(evotus) n(umini) m(aiestati)q(ue) e(ius)].
  12. ^ Salway, pp. 129–130
  13. ISBN 978-3-05-004149-0
    , at p. 130.
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