A Equidade na Antiguidade Clássica: da virtude grega à jurística romana

Abstract

The present work proposes to investigate the transfer of justice, notedly in its equitable aspect, from greek’s moral philosophy to the roman’s jurisprudence. As methodology, it adopted the dialectical concept of history as conceived by Hegel, for whom rationality commands the route of time. In the first part, it was studied classical Greek philosophy, where justice, thus equity, was connected to the moral. To do so, research was undertaken about the beginning of the anthropological schools in classical thinking, showing its context and particularities. It entered then at Plato’s and Aristotle’s political thought. Then it passed through the Hellenic schools, notably stoicism, and its interior philosophy, in the context of greek’s decadence. The second part was dedicated to the Roman world, this a juridical one. The research seeked to demonstrate how and why jurisprudence had been developed there, initiating by the study of the categories. Furthermore, it was pointed out that this flourishing only happened thanks to the basis grounded by Greek philosophy, reason why it was retaken the philosophers and schools of thought priorly presented, but now in the aspects of its impacts at Roman law. Finally, it discussed, as from numberless examples, about equity in practical terms, aiming to demonstrate how this mechanism had been consolidated in Roman law, notably in the Republic. The conclusion was that Plato’s ‘It is right to give every man his due’ achieved its summit by means of aequitas.