Salvius Julianus
[1] Julianus also served in the emperor's inner circle, the consilium principis, which functioned something like a modern cabinet, directing new legislation, but also sometimes like a court of law.
"Hadrian organized it as a permanent council composed of members (jurists, high imperial functionaries of equestrian rank, and senators) appointed for life (consiliarii).
Though Julianus for decades served several emperors in succession, at high levels of the Roman imperial government, to investigate the details of his jurisprudence his written works on law are the primary sources.
"The task of his life consisted, in the first place, in the final consolidation of the edictal law; and, secondly, in the composition of his great Digest in ninety books.
"[4] Julianus was born during the last years of the Emperor Trajan (r. 98–117), probably at the village of Pupput near the Roman colony of Hadrumetum, on the east coast of Africa Province (now modern Sousse in Tunisia).
According to his contemporary the Roman jurist Sextus Pomponius, Julianus (along with Aburnius Valens and Tuscianus) eventually came to lead for a time this very influential school of jurisprudence.
Thereafter, Iulianus became occupied with writing his own substantial commentary on developments in Roman law, his celebrated Digestorum libri xc [Digesta in 90 books].
Perhaps through his daughter from Hadrumetum, who married into "one of the most prominent families of Mediolanum" (modern Milan), he became the grandfather of Didius Iulianus, or else his uncle.
Nonetheless, certain changes in the Edict wrought by Julianus are well known, e.g., regarding intestate succession, that affecting shares of inheritance among children in the Bonorum possessio unde liberi.
It was this received "edictal order of topics" that was already widely used in juristic works of the Principate, during the classical period of Roman Law.
"[32] Of his own writings, his principal work was the Digesta, a systematic treatise on civil and praetorian law which was often cited by Roman legal writers.
“It is a comprehensive collection of responsa on real and hypothetical cases; in general, it followed the edictal system.” The works of Iulianus, in particular his Digesta, "are among the most highly appreciated products of Roman juristic literature.
"[P]roblems are considered from the point of view of general theory, with the result that imagined cases play a considerable, perhaps even a predominant, part.
[35] Prof. Sohm states: "His vast acquaintance with practical case-law, the ingenuity of his own countless decisions, his genius for bringing out, in each separate case, the general rule of law which, tersely and pithily put, strikes the mind with all the force of a brilliant aphorism and sheds its light over the whole subject around--these are the features which constitute the power of his work.
Roman jurisprudence had completed its dialectic training under Labeo and Sabinus, and the time had now arrived for applying to the immense mass of materials the principles, categories, and points of view that had been thus worked out.
His opinions influenced many other jurists, thanks to the clarity and finesse of his reasoning, as is demonstrated by the fact that, in the Digest, there are 457 fragments written by Iulianus.
[40] The 2nd-century Digesta of Salvius Iulianus was repeatedly excerpted, hundreds of times, by the compilers of the 6th-century Pandectae (or Digest), created under the authority of the Byzantine emperor Justinian I (r. 527–565).
The principal characteristics of Julian's work seem to be a very lucid style and a clear recognition of the fact that legal conceptions must move with the times.
The culminating point in the curve of this development lies unquestionably with the age of Trajan and Hadrian, when the Principate itself reached its zenith.
