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B. M. Levick, Kaius Tuori. The Emperor of Law: The Emergence of Roman Imperial Adjudication., The American Historical Review, Volume 123, Issue 1, February 2018, Pages 281–282, https://doi.org/10.1093/ahr/123.1.281
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Behind an enigmatic main title lies a long-standing historical puzzle: how did the Roman emperor come to be supreme judge? The first answer proposed was simple, and dates back to the time of Theodor Mommsen in the mid-nineteenth century. The power was conferred constitutionally, by law, and it was an answer feebly supported by claims put forward by the third-century Greek historian Cassius Dio and by reference to a lex regia in the sixth-century Digest of Roman law—feebly because of their late date. More recently scholars have preferred different solutions, and now Kaius Tuori, in The Emperor of Law, offers one based on narratives, a word that figures freely throughout his work.
Narratology has long played a role in ancient literary studies, so it is only natural that narrative should catch the attention of historians. Tuori is calling on Tacitus and Suetonius, but on other authors, too, who are not historians—indeed on any author who has a story to tell that reveals something about the development of the emperor’s jurisdiction (or his adjudication, which is sometimes the author’s preferred term). In fact, Tuori starts with Cicero, as the orator in 46 b.c.e. defends Quintus Ligarius before the dictator Julius Caesar, who was, Tuori stresses, emphatically not an emperor. From this point, Tuori proceeds chronologically, ending with the Severan dynasty in the third century.
