Marcus Junius Brutus (jurist)

Marcus Junius Brutus was a Roman jurist of the patrician Junii family who lived in the 2nd century BC, probably the son of the consul of 178 BC and brother of Decimus Junius Brutus Callaicus, consul in 138 BC. He is thought to have served as curule aedile around 146 BC before holding the office of praetor, in which role he exercised an increasingly creative jurisprudence that moved beyond strict adherence to earlier statutory law. He wrote three books titled De Iure Civili, presented as a dialogue with his son, along with four books of Responsa recording his legal opinions; both works survive only in fragments quoted by later writers. Roman legal tradition, recorded by the jurist Pomponius, credited him together with Manius Manilius and Publius Mucius Scaevola as one of the three founders of Roman private law as a systematic science.