A Dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology

or SEX., the author of a supposed collection o fthe Leges Regiae, which was called Jus Papirianum, or Jus Civile Papiriunum. Dionysius (3.36) states that the Pontifex Maximus, C. Papirius, made a collection of the religious ordinances of Numa, after the expulsion of the last Tarquin: these ordinances, it is further said, had been cut on wooden tablets by the order of Ancus Marcius (Liv. 1.20, 32; Dionys. A. R. 2.63). Pomponits (Dig. 2. tit. 2. s. 2.2. 36) states that Sex. or P. Papirius, in the time of Superbus, the son of Demeratus (but Superbus was not the son of Demeratus), made a compilation of all the Leges Regiae. Though much has been written in modern times about this compilation, nothing certain is known; and all conjecture is fruitless. A work of Granius Flaccus, "Liber de Jure Papiriano," is quoted as a commentary on the Jus Papirianum (Dig. 50. tit. 16. s. 144). It appears that there were Leges enacted in the time of the kings, or there were laws which passed as such, for they are sometimes cited by writers of the imperial period. Thus Marcellns (Dig. 11. tit. 8. s. 2) quotes a Lex Regia, which provides that a pregnant woman who dies must not he buried before the child is taken out of her. The passage cited by Macrobius (Macr. 3.11), front the Jus Papirianum is manifestly not the language of a period so early as that of Papirius, and accordingly the critics suppose that Macrobius refers to the commentary of Granius, through Macrobius refers distinctly to the Jus Papirianum. The Lex Papiria of Servius (ad Virg. Aen. 12.836) appears to refer to the Jus Papirianum. (Grotius, Vitae Jurisconsult.; Zimmern, Geschichte des Roöm. Privatrechts, vol. i. pp. 86, 88)

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