Ulpiānus, Domitius
The most celebrated among Roman jurists next to Papinianus. Born at Tyre about A.D. 170, he
began his career in Rome under Septimius Severus as colleague of Papinianus; and, under
Elagabalus and Alexander Severus, whose preceptor and guardian he had been, he filled the
office of a
praefectus praetorio. During his tenure of this office he was
murdered (228 A.D.) before the eyes of the emperor by the Praetorians, whom he had exasperated
by the strictness of his discipline. His two chief works, on the praetorian law (
Ad
Edictum), in eighty-three books, and on the civil law (
Ad Sabinum), in
fifty-one books, were held in high esteem, and formed the foundation of the Pandects of
Justinian's
Corpus Iuris. Of this portion the extracts from his writings form a
full third. Besides these excerpts we have a small part of his
Regularum Liber
Singularis (ed. by Böcking [Bonn, 1855]), and of his
Institutiones, included in Huschke's
Iurisprudentia
Anteiustiniana, 568, and edited by Vahlen
(Bonn, 1856). See Schilling,
De Ulpiano (Breslau, 1824); and Karlowa,
Röm.
Rechtsgeschichte, i. 743.
