Sobre la denominación casianos / sabinianos

Abstract

The received doctrine is that the term Sabinian originally designated members of a school of jurists that emerged in the early Principality. The term was held to derive from Massurius Sabinus, a jurist of relatively humble origins and who never occupied a position of rank. On the basis of new textual evidence in addition to that recently proposed by Cannata, this article demonstrates that the original term derived from Cassian (from the jurist Gaius Cassius Longinus: CONSUL SUFFECTUS 30) while the second term – Sabinian – did not even refer to Massurius Sabinus. It referred instead to Celius Sabinus (CONSUL SUFFECTUS 69) who succeeded Cassius as head of school when the latter fell out of favour with Nero (65) and was exiled to Sardinia.