No empire of the ancient Near East, not even that of Alexander, had succeeded in bringing to men a sense of their unity in a political organization. Political unity was to be the peculiar task of Rome. The application of the Roman law to citizens in all parts of the empire was daily pressed upon the Romans and the subjects of the empire by the impartial justice of Roman courts. This Roman law grew out of the customary law of the early monarchy. During the early republic, in the fifth century before