Peter Jones

Ancient & modern | 29 May 2010

A ‘bonfire of laws’! How agreeable! But European law is sacred; government will make the final decision, whatever we want; and it cannot be done sensibly without a far more demanding operation.

issue 29 May 2010

A ‘bonfire of laws’! How agreeable! But European law is sacred; government will make the final decision, whatever we want; and it cannot be done sensibly without a far more demanding operation.

A ‘bonfire of laws’! How agreeable! But European law is sacred; government will make the final decision, whatever we want; and it cannot be done sensibly without a far more demanding operation.

The Lex Aquilia (after its proposer Aquilius, c. 287 bc) dealt with unlawful killing, and one section is devoted to ‘four-footed beasts of the class of cattle’. So which animals — apart from cows and bulls — are those? The Roman jurist Gaius (c. ad 160) attempted to answer. Sheep, goats, horses, mules and asses were indeed ‘classes of cattle’, he decided. Pigs? Yes, just. But not dogs, much less bears, lions and panthers.

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