A Roman law expert has reconstructed and translated a 1,600-year-old Latin text preserved in parchment fragments from Egypt, revealing Roman laws not found in known surviving legal codes.
Matthijs Wibier, an assistant professor of classics at the University of Cincinnati, pieced together the damaged parchment held by the Penn Museum in Philadelphia. The double-sided page contains laws governing taxes, public roads, and government property.
Researchers date the text to the late fourth century. Wibier believes it may have belonged to a compact collection of imperial laws used by Roman officials. Wealthy taxpayers or their lawyers may also have consulted such a book.
The manuscript was carefully produced in high-quality script, Wibier said, supporting the possibility that it belonged to an official.
Fragments reveal a lost Roman legal text
The document survives in about 50 fragments of parchment made from animal skin. The Penn Museum acquired them from an antiquities dealer in Egypt in 1911.
With help from the museum, Wibier reconstructed much of the page from seven of the largest pieces. He used ultraviolet light to increase the contrast of the faded ink and recover more of the Latin writing.
Physical details helped him determine how the page originally appeared in the book. One side contains three examples of red ink used to highlight material. Differences between the smoother and more textured sides of the animal skin also helped establish the page’s orientation.
The laws date from the period of Roman emperors Constantius II and Julian, also known as Julian the Apostate, who ruled between 337 and 363. Few books from that era survive intact, making fragmentary manuscripts important sources for understanding Roman government and society.
Laws focused on roads, taxes and property
One passage discusses the public road system and the funding needed to maintain infrastructure. Wibier said it may have required wealthy citizens to help maintain roads and provide grain for the food supply. Another law appears to warn people against treating public buildings as private property.
A 1,600-year-old parchment from Egypt has revealed Roman laws missing from known surviving legal codes.
Pieced together from dozens of fragments, the Latin text sheds new light on how the Roman Empire handled taxes, roads and public property. pic.twitter.com/gFs4ss2tpr
— Tom Marvolo Riddle (@tom_riddle2025) August 27, 2026
The provisions reflect major concerns for Roman authorities. The empire needed to keep cities supplied with food, maintain infrastructure, and provide for its military. Wealthy residents also helped finance parts of that system.
Wibier compared the parchment with surviving Roman legal works, particularly the Codex Theodosianus, or Theodosian Code. The 16-book collection contains more than 2,500 imperial laws issued between 311 and 437.
Two books in the code cover similar subjects. However, Wibier argues that the Penn fragments probably did not come from either one, although he could not rule out the possibility completely.
Daniel Markovich, head of the University of Cincinnati’s Department of Classics, said the discovery is unusual because, unlike nearly all other fragmentary Roman law books, the text does not correspond to a known imperial legal code.
Parchment offers glimpse of Roman government
The Roman Empire of Constantius II and Julian extended from Britain across Europe and into Syria and Egypt, which had become a major Roman province, with tens of millions of people under imperial rule.
The parchment offers a rare look at how authorities managed practical problems across that vast territory. Its rules show the importance of food supplies, roads, public property and contributions from wealthy citizens.
The manuscript is also unusual within the Penn Museum. Jennifer Houser Wegner, curator-in-charge of its Egyptian collection, said it is the collection’s only Latin manuscript from Egypt.
Wibier detailed his reconstruction and translation in a chapter of the forthcoming book Il Codice Teodosiano, edited by Detlef Liebs and Dario Mantovani and scheduled for publication by Pavia University Press.
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