Slouching towards the Holy City: Some Weeds for Philip Allott

In 1642, Grotius published Florum sparsio in Jus Justineaneum, Flowers strewn on Justinian’s law, which I initially and mistakenly recalled as a recasting of Justinian’s Institutes into Latin verse, and thought was meant as a homage to Justinian. Florum sparsio is, in fact, a prose work, a legal, historical and philological commentary on Justinian’s Institutes, Digests, Codex and Novellae, although Grotius had rendered chapters of Justinian into verse when he was younger. Be that as it may, this is meant as a homage to Philip Allott, but one which does not try to gloss his thoughts, nor attempts to restate them in a different form, but rather endeavours to explore some of his central ideas. It thus pays its compliments and respects to him by taking his work seriously. Unfortunately, all I can offer is weeds, not flowers: I am not Grotius; my ideas are still green; and I am assuredly not a poet, even though I sometimes harbour the ambition to rouse myself to become a Bad Poet. Apparently, however, Grotius was not much of a poet either: