Abstract
In the texts of Roman jurists, we come across numerous metaphorses. But were they conscious of using them ? The lecture will address this question, which is fundamental from a methodological point of view, by looking for signs of the jurists' attitude in the texts themselves. There is no shortage of evidence of their familiarity with metaphors : jurists often warn the reader that they are about to introduce one (by quaedam or quodammodo, " presque ", " en quelque sorte "). Two examples are particularly illustrative : the definition of rivage and that of degrees of kinship. We will follow the various definitions of the sea shore (litus), observing the gradual cooling of their metaphorical register (Cicero, Topics, 32 ; Cicero, The Nature of the Gods, 2.100 ; Iavolenus, D. 50, 16, 112 ; Celsus, D. 50, 16, 96). The definition of degrees of kinship proposed by Paul (D. 38, 10, 10), on the other hand, shows the jurist's ability to exploit the metaphorical character of a now lexicalized term (the " gradus " being originally the steps of a staircase) to link it, without pretence, to the law of the Twelve Tables, i.e. to bring it back into the field of law. The awareness that jurists had of metaphors invites us to consider that, on the one hand, they tended to maintain a sober style and that, on the other, within the narrow margins of manoeuvre left to them by the stylistic conventions of technical prose, they took advantage of metaphors and their connotative capacity to give coherence to their argumentation and to the legal system itself.
