ted to
collections of formularies and explanations of terms in the laws;
at this period there was first formed a literature of opinions
(-responsa-), which answers nearly to our modern collections of
precedents. These opinions--which were delivered no longer merely
by members of the pontifical college, but by every one who found
persons to consult him, at home or in the open market-place,
and with which were already associated rational and polemical
illustrations and the standing controversies peculiar to
jurisprudence--began to be noted down and to be promulgated in
collections about the beginning of the seventh century. This was
done first by the younger Cato (d. about 600) and by Marcus Brutus
(nearly contemporary); and these collections were, as it would
appear, arranged in the order of matters.(39) A strictly
systematic treatment of the law of the land soon followed.
Its founder was the -pontifex maximus- Quintus Mucius Scaevola
(consul in 659, d. 672),(40) in whose family jurisprudence was,
like the supreme priesthood, hereditary. His eighteen books
on the -Ius Civile-, which embraced the positive materials of
jurisprudence--legislative enactments, judicial precedents, and
authorities--partly from the older collections, partly from oral
tradition in as great completeness as possible, formed the starting-
point and the model of the detailed systems of Roman law; in like
manner his compendious treatise of "Definitions" (--oroi--) became
the basis of juristic summaries and particularly of the books
of Rules. Although this development of law proceeded of course
in the main independently of Hellenism, yet an acquaintance with
the philosophico-practical scheme-making of the Greeks beyond
doubt gave a general impulse to the more systematic treatment of
jurisprudence, as in fact the Greek influence is in the case of
the last-mentioned treatise apparent in the very title. We have
already remarked that in several more external matters Roman
jurisprudence was influenced by the Stoa.(41)

Art exhibits still less pleasing results. In architecture,
sculpture, and painting there was, no doubt, a more and more
general diffusion of a dilettante interest, but the exercise of
native art retrograded rather than advanced. It became more and
more customary for those sojourning in Grecian lands personally to
inspect the works of art; for which in particular the winter-
quarters of Sulla's army in Asia Minor in 670-671 formed