Gaius

Life and ideas

Almost nothing is known about Gaius as a person; we do not even know his full name. He taught law in the Roman Empire in the second century AD, probably in a provincial city, and the fact that the great jurists of his own time hardly cited him suggests that he was a teacher more than a practising jurist. His Institutes, a textbook for beginners, divides private law into persons, things and actions, a plan that is simple, clear and easy to learn. A manuscript was found in 1816 by the historian Niebuhr in Verona, written beneath a text of Saint Jerome, and it gave us the best view of classical Roman law. Justinian's Institutes copied his structure, and through them the three-part plan passed into the civil codes of Europe and from there to much of the world.