Figures; Acknowledgements; Abbreviations; Introduction: did Romans have law? Part I. Nevertheless, we Live According to the Laws: 1. Augustus and the birth of imperial legality; 2. The emperors who obeyed the law: Vespasian, Titus, Trajan; 3. Letters from a god: Hadrian and the rescript system; Part II. Law without Order: 4. Inheritance, authority, and Alexander; 5. Juristic reasoning, citational practices, and law at the end of an empire; Part III.

New Rules: 6. Towards late antique legalities; 7. The embodiment of the civil law; Conclusion: what we talk about when we talk about Roman law; Appendix 1. Juristic citations of imperial lawmaking in the digest; Appendix 2. Precedential reasoning in the codex Justinianus; Appendix 3. Rule-Consequentialist reasoning in the digest; Bibliography; Index of terms; Index of sources.