Forensic Experts and Roman Law

Roman judges increasingly relied on specialists to decide disputed facts. Ido Israelowich reveals how physicians, midwives, surveyors, engineers, and wine experts gained (or failed to gain) legal authority, transforming both Roman justice and the development of law.

Roman law is usually told as the work of jurists. Ido Israelowich shows that its factual groundwork lay elsewhere – with the physicians, midwives, surveyors, and wine experts whose judgement Roman courts came to treat as authoritative. He traces the incentives that led those courts to rely on specialists in resolving factual questions. He asks how and why the authority of such experts came to be recognised and sanctioned: whether this development resulted primarily from advances within the disciplines themselves or from external legal, institutional, and social pressures. He further explores whether the role of forensic experts was confined to adjudicating individual disputes or whether the recognition of forensic authority also shaped the development of Roman positive law. Israelowich focuses on experts whose authority the courts formally acknowledged – land surveyors, physicians, midwives, civil engineers, and wine experts – while also considering representatives of other disciplines who sought, but ultimately failed, to obtain judicial recognition. By tracing the interaction between legal institutions and specialised knowledge, Israelowich shows that forensic authority did not merely settle individual cases but left its mark on Roman positive law itself.

Introduction

Chapter 1. Habitus and the Emergence of Expert Status
Land Surveyors and Professional Authority
The Lex Mamilia
Surveyors as Arbitri ex Compromisso
Surveyors in the Service of Roman Magistrates
Actio si Mensor Falsum Modum Dixerit
The Scope of the Actio si Mensor Falsum Modum Dixerit
Wine Experts and Forensic Skills
Conclusion

Chapter 2. Medicine as a Legal Skill
Medicine and the Aedilian Edict
The Aedilian Edict
The Legalization of Medical Practice
The Emergence of Forensic Medicine
Conclusion

Chapter 3. Medical Expertise in the Roman Court
The Legal Infrastructure
Case Study I. Physicians and Violent Injury
Physicians as Judicial Authorities
Documentary Evidence and the Petition Procedure
Public Physicians
Case Study II. Midwives and Reproductive Disputes
The Midwife in Graeco-Roman Medicine
Midwives and Forensic Authority
Pregnancy and Lineage Disputes
Birth Registration and the Professio Liberorum
The Senatus Consultum Plancianum and Disputed Paternity
The Rescript De Inspiciendo Ventre Custodiendoque Partu
The Duty to Recognize One's Child
The Carbonian Edict and Posthumous Heirs
Child Exposure as Evidence
Habitus, Professionalization, and the Transformation of Authority
The Paterfamilias and the Limits of Domestic Authority
Case Study III. Physicians and Mental Illness
Medicine and Impaired Cognition
Literary Evidence
Conclusion

Chapter 4. Professional Liability and the Development of Forensic Science
The Lex Aquilia
Professional Responsibility
Professional Liability and Forensic Science

• By (author) Ido Israelowich