The History of the Roman Civil Process as a Universal Model of the Evolution of the Rules of the Ancient World

Abstract

The article examines the main stages of the evolution of the civil process in Ancient Rome. On the basis of extensive legal, historical and cultural material, it has been proved that the evolution of Roman procedural law reflects the general laws of the development of the legal order of the Ancient world. The author highlights three major trends in the historical dynamics of civil proceedings in Rome: first, the strengthening of the role of the state; secondly, the unequal ratio of the formal and semantic aspects of the civil process at various stages of its evolution; third, the modification of the form of claims. As shown in the work, the form of claims provided for by Roman private law has evolved from the commission of non-verbal actions to oral statements and written documents. The trends considered are due to the general cultural patterns of the evolution of Roman private law and typologically identical legal orders of antiquity. The work highlights two such patterns: firstly, the transition from non-verbal gesture communication, first to oral speech, and then to written communication in the legal sphere. Secondly, a phased transition from regulation, carried out mainly based on the subjective rights and obligations of the participants, to normative regulation. According to the author, the visual manifestation of these patterns in the Roman civil procedure makes it a universal model for studying the evolution of the legal order of the Ancient world.