The Art of the Roman Jurists offers a clear, detailed, and thorough account of the relationship between Roman law and society from 100 BCE to 235 CE and traces the rise of the group of legal experts known as jurists. While prominent in the first century BCE, they consolidated their position in the first years of the Principate. But it is only in the second century, starting in the reign of Antoninus Pius (138–161), that, in author Bruce W. Frier’s view, they most emphatically come into their own. The collection reveals how the jurists can evince an awareness of the impact their holdings portend for the social and economic reality. Frier's method is anchored in the ancient sources, extending far beyond the legal evidence, offering a perspective on Roman jurisprudence as it was lived. This collection of published and unpublished articles from Frier examines crucial aspects of his methodology and looks to the future of the study of Roman law.

Bruce W. Frier is John and Teresa D’Arms Distinguished University Professor of Classics and Roman Law Emeritus at the University of Michigan. He is the author of Libri Annales Pontificum Maximorum: The Origins of the Annalistic Tradition.

Thomas A.J. McGinn is Distinguished Professor of History at Vanderbilt University. He is the author of  The Economy of Prostitution in the Roman World: A Story of Social History and the Brothel, co-editor of Ancient Law, Ancient Society, and editor of Obligations in Roman Law: Past, Present, and Future.

Paul J. du Plessis is Professor of Roman Law and Director of the Centre for Legal History, The University of Edinburgh Law School.

Table of Contents
Editor’s Foreword – An Origin Story and The Ones that Got Away.
Introduction by Paul du Plessis.
Part I. Towards a Paradigm
1. "Bees and Lawyers," Classical Journal 78 (1982/1983) 
2. "Why Did the Jurists Change Roman Law? Bees and Lawyers Revisited," Index 22 (Omaggio a Peter Stein, ed. L. Labruna; 1994)
Part 2. The Development of the Legal Profession
3. “Law and Legalism in the Roman Republic” (unpublished).
4. "Autonomy of Law and the Origins of the Legal Profession," Cardozo Law Review 11 (1989) 
5. "Finding a Place for Law in the High Roman Empire: Tacitus, Dialogus 39.1-4," in Spaces of Justice in the Roman World (ed. F. de Angelis; Columbia Studies in the Classical Tradition 35, 2010)
6. "Competition and Cooperation among the Roman Jurists," in Claire Bubb and Michael Peachin, eds., Medicine and the Law under the Roman Empire (Oxford; Oxford University Press, 2022) 
7. “The Foundations of Roman Legal Culture: Ius, Lex, and Legal Certainty” (unpublished).
Part 3. The Purposive Side of Roman Private Law
8. “Law, Technology, and Social Change: The Equipping of Italian Farm Tenancies,” Zeitschrift der Savigny-Stiftung für Rechtsgeschichte, Rom. Abt. 96 (1979)
9. “Roman Law and the Wine Trade: The Problem of Vinegar Sold as Wine,” Zeitschrift der Savigny-Stiftung für Rechtsgeschichte, Rom. Abt. 100 (1983) 
10. “Law, Economics, and Disasters Down on the Farm: Remissio Mercedis Revisited,” Bullettino dell’Istituto di Diritto Romano 31/32 (1989-1990 / publ. 1993) 
11. “The Roman Origins of the Public Trust Doctrine,” in Journal of Roman Archaeology 32 (2019)
12. “Dowry Economics and the Problem of Agency,” (unpublished).
Part 4: Coda
13. “Roman Law’s Descent into History,” in Journal of Roman Archaeology 13 (2000) 
Index