for themselves as occasion and the necessities of human life re-
quired. For instance, wars arose, and then followed captivity
and slavery, which are contrary to the law of nature; for by the
law of nature all men from the beginning were born free. The
law of nations again is the source of almost all contracts; for
instance, sale, hire, partnership, deposit, loan for consumption,
and very many others.

3 Our law is partly written, partly unwritten, as among the
Greeks. The written law consists of statutes, plebiscites,
senatusconsults, enactments of the Emperors, edicts of the
magistrates, and answers of those learned in the law. 4 A
statute is an enactment of the Roman people, which it used to
make on the motion of a senatorial magistrate, as for instance
a consul. A plebiscite is an enactment of the commonalty,
such as was made on the motion of one of their own magistrates,
as a tribune. The commonalty differs from the people as a
species from its genus; for `the people' includes the whole
aggregate of citizens, among them patricians and senators,
while the term `commonalty' embraces only such citizens as
are not patricians or senators. After the passing, however,
of the statute called the lex Hortensia, plebiscites acquired
for the first time the force of statutes. 5 A senatusconsult
is a command and ordinance of the senate, for when the
Roman people had been so increased that it was difficult to
assemble it together for the purpose of enacting statutes, it
seemed right that the senate should be consulted instead of
the people. 6 Again, what the Emperor determines has the
force of a statute, the people having conferred on him all their
authority and power by the ‘lex regia,’ which was passed