The Pre-Roman Commercial Law Seen by the Dogmatic. Remarks on the Basis of the Book ”Le antiche leggi del commercio” of Marco Cian
The paper presents remarks made after reading the book of the Italian commercial law scholar, Marco Cian. His work considers ancient commercial statutes as prototypes of commercial law as such. Contrarily, the traditional doctrine recognizes the beginning of commercial law merely in medieval times. It is hard to find in antiquity the concept of commercial law similar to the modern one as a separate branch of private law. However, the chieftains of small Hebrew tribes or Pharaohs wanted to affect somehow the production or trade with their laws. Marco Cian concentrates on ancient Egypt, Mesopotamian codes, and Hebrew law. His last chapter is dedicated to Greek laws. It is seriously disappointing that the book omits issues connected with Roman law. Despite the fact that Roman legal experience is especially productive and instructive in that aspect and included in the title literally, the author decided that it has already been studied well enough by scholars.