Roman law in legal and non legal writings with Maren Niehoff and Ulrike Babusiaux

Roman law is often studied through juristic writings, imperial legislation, and legal compilations. Yet legal ideas also permeated a much broader range of texts, from philosophy and rhetoric to history, Jewish literature, and early Christian writings. Inspired by the conference Roman Law in Non-Legal Writings: Romans, Greeks, Jews and Christians, held in Munich in February 2026, this episode explores how these non-legal sources not only reflected Roman law but also participated in shaping legal knowledge and authority.Together with Professors Ulrike Babusiaux and Maren Niehoff, we discuss how legal concepts travelled across intellectual, religious, and social boundaries, becoming part of a shared cultural language. The conversation examines the relationship between law and narrative, the transmission of legal ideas beyond professional jurists, and the implications of these processes for understanding legal pluralism in the Roman world. More broadly, the episode invites us to reconsider Roman law not simply as a body of rules, but as a dynamic cultural phenomenon embedded in the wider intellectual life of antiquity.