Domitius Ulpianus (died
228), anglicized as
Ulpian, was a
Roman jurist of
Tyrian ancestry. The time and place of his birth are unknown, but the period of his literary activity was between AD
211 and
222. He made his first appearance in public life as assessor in the auditorium of
Papinian and member of the council of
Septimius Severus; under
Caracalla he was master of the requests (
magister libellorum).
Elagabalus (also known as Heliogabalus) banished him from
Rome, but on the accession of
Alexander (222) he was reinstated, and finally became the emperor's chief adviser and
praefectus praetorio. His curtailment of the privileges granted to the
Praetorian Guard by
Elagabalus provoked their enmity, and he narrowly escaped their vengeance; ultimately he was murdered in the palace, in the course of a riot between the soldiers and the mob.
His works include:
Ad Sabinum, a commentary on the
jus civile, in over 50 books;
Ad edictum, a commentary on the
Edict, in 83 books; collections of opinions, responses and disputations; books of rules and institutions; treatises on the functions of the different magistrates--one of them, the
De officio proconsulis libri x., being a comprehensive exposition of the criminal law; monographs on various statutes, on testamentary trusts, and a variety of other works. His writings altogether have supplied to
Justinian's Digest about a third of its contents, and his commentary on the
Edict alone about a fifth. As an author he is characterized by doctrinal exposition of a high order, judiciousness of criticism, and lucidity of arrangement, style and language.
Domitii Ulpiani fragmenta, consisting of 29 titles, were first edited by Tilius (Paris, 1549). Other editions are by
Hugo (Berlin, 1834), Booking (Bonn, 1836), containing fragments of the first book of the
Institutiones discovered by Endlicher at Vienna in 1835, and in Girard's
Textes de droit romain (Paris, 1890).
***
It has been assumed for a long time that Ulpian of Tyre has been a model for
Athenaeus' Ulpian in
The Deipnosophists - or
The Banquet of the Learned. Athenaeus makes 'Ulpian' out to be a grammarian and philologist, characterised by his customary interjections : "Where does this word occur in writing?". He is represented as a symposiarch and he occupies a couch alone; his death is passed over in silence in Book XV 686 c.
Scholars today agree that
Athenaeus's Ulpian is not the historical Ulpian, but possibly his father.
The date of the real Ulpian's death in 228 A.D. has been wrongly used to estimate the date of completion of
The Deipnosophists.
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