Creating a digital platform for the text-critical study of Roman law

The Index 2.0 project aims to trigger a new wave of text-based computational research in Roman law that would complement doctrinal and historical approaches. We set out on this journey by bringing the invaluable resource of the Index interpolatiounum (eds. E Levy, E Rabel & L Mitteis, Weimar: H. Böhlau, 1929-1935) into the digital age. This gigantic early 20ᵗʰ century work brings together hundreds of years of scholarship on the authenticity of juristic sources included in the Digest, the authoritative Roman law compendium (533 CE) commissioned by the Byzantine emperor Justinian I (527-565 CE). The Index examines closely every line of every juristic fragments preserved in the Digest, considering their authenticity, providing alternative readings, and shaping our understanding of ancient Roman law.

An interactive digital platform with a relational database of the Index at its core is the ultimate digital output of the Index 2.0 project. We hope to secure funding for a multi-year large-grant project which will make the Digest text interactive where users can toggle between different readings according to periods, schools, and individual researchers, reconstruct the text, style, and doctrine of ancient jurists according to available evidence, and record their own insights about textual authenticity on a platform we envisage to become an online meeting point of Roman legal scholarship.

The project is steered by an international team of three early career Roman law researchers, Giuseppe Di Donato (Edinburgh Napier), Joanna Kulawiak-Cyrankowska (Lodz), and Marton Ribary (Royal Holloway). The project idea was developed in consultation with Craig Anderson (Edinburgh Napier), David Natal Villazala (Royal Holloway), Benet Salway (UCL), and the co-directors of Royal Holloway’s Rights and Freedom research cluster, Jill Marshall and Leonardo Oliveira.