Military Tribune Pay?

[Damianus Albus]

Fourth is my favourite. It's about "Law from Ruffus". A whole codex of military offences and punishments.

Do you have any views on the date of this code? It strikes me as being more Byzantine than Principate or Dominate, especially the one on having the offender's nose cut off for rape, although there are parallels with the Digest. If I remember aright, it survives only as a copy of a Byzantine original but I am open to correction on this.

Well, the origins are unknown.
There are many issues with Law from Ruffus. We must thank to Johan Lovenklau for the most complete version and I gues that's the only thing we can be sure of.
Firstly, there are rumour that Lovenklau added something to the original text.
Secondly, his work about Graeco-Roman law was translated from greek to latin BUT we might suspect that laws from ruffus were in latin already so did he rewirte them word after word? Or did he change the words for more medieval latin? If not, how old the text is? He was using Francois Pithou manuscript, but how much this manuscript was written in medieval latin and how much had survived from original text?
Trhidly, as for the timeline... Well it's hard to tell. It could be written even at the end of II BC by Publius Rutilius Rufus or maybe by the author of Strategica? We don't know but we can say for sure that it was made a way before Digesta. Why? Because Digesta in military part (49.16) are very very similar to Rufus'. The only difference is language. "Modern" words but same message. For example:

Rufus':

A soldier shall not purchase a landed estate where he serves, unless it be to redeem his ancestral estate from the Treasury


Digesta:

Soldiers are forbidden to purchase land in the provinces in which they serve, except where property of their parents is sold by the Treasury; for Severus and Antoninus made an exception under such circumstances

In such case we can assume that laws from Ruffus are older than 138 AD. But that's just assumption.

Too many questions without an answers