<P> To describe a person's position in the legal system, Romans mostly used the expression togeus . The individual could have been a Roman citizen (status civitatis) unlike foreigners, or he could have been free (status libertatis) unlike slaves, or he could have had a certain position in a Roman family (status familiae) either as the head of the family (pater familias), or some lower member. * alieni iuris - which lives by someone else's law . Two status types were senator and emperor . </P> <P> The history of Roman Law can be divided into three systems of procedure: that of legis actiones, the formulary system, and cognitio extra ordinem . The periods in which these systems were in use overlapped one another and did not have definitive breaks, but it can be stated that the legis actio system prevailed from the time of the XII Tables (c. 450 BC) until about the end of the 2nd century BC, that the formulary procedure was primarily used from the last century of the Republic until the end of the classical period (c . AD 200), and that of cognitio extra ordinem was in use in post-classical times . Again, these dates are meant as a tool to help understand the types of procedure in use, not as a rigid boundary where one system stopped and another began . </P> <P> During the republic and until the bureaucratization of Roman judicial procedure, the judge was usually a private person (iudex privatus). He had to be a Roman male citizen . The parties could agree on a judge, or they could appoint one from a list, called album iudicum . They went down the list until they found a judge agreeable to both parties, or if none could be found they had to take the last one on the list . </P> <P> No one had a legal obligation to judge a case . The judge had great latitude in the way he conducted the litigation . He considered all the evidence and ruled in the way that seemed just . Because the judge was not a jurist or a legal technician, he often consulted a jurist about the technical aspects of the case, but he was not bound by the jurist's reply . At the end of the litigation, if things were not clear to him, he could refuse to give a judgment, by swearing that it wasn't clear . Also, there was a maximum time to issue a judgment, which depended on some technical issues (type of action, etc .). </P>

When did roman ideas about law and government spread over a large area