Ill M\’ second example of I'he Lasr Best (dianee is the oath. I'ormal, legalized use of the oath has more applications than ritualized eursing had among the Israelites, hut we find it above all in \ arious societies in certain typical areas: (i) treaties with foreign powers; (2) oaths of office, such as those administered to Presidents or iudges; (3) oaths of jurors or witnesses; (4) oaths of personal allegiance h\’ militarv officers to dictators. What these cases haxe in common is that an action for breach of contract-and an oath in some senses is contractual-would not be a satisfactor\- remed\’. In Rome, part of a treat\ was couched in proper legal form using the wording of a particular contract {sfwr/xio) that ma\’ ha\e originally iinoKed an oath, but as the jurist Cjaius writing around 160 .\.n. noted, breach of the rreat\' would not gi\ e rise to a contractual remed\, but to the laws of .Vn oath is exacted from a President, not because it will make him semper fidclis^ but because law generally has no sanction sufficienth’ powerful to be satisfactor\’. .\nd a dictator, deserted Iw his troops, will not find an adequate remed\’ in the courts; like 1 litler he takes a personal oath of lo\ alt\’ from his officers. But the oath has still wider applications, perhaps relating to past deeds or to a state of fact, and these oaths are even more re\ ealing for The Lasr Best Cdiance. Lor example, in the whole of Roman pri- \ate law there was onh’ one situation, apart from procedures in court, where an oath was accorded legal recognition. That was the so-called iiisiuriuuluni liberti [oåxXx of a freedmanf 'fhe background was this. When a Roman changed status {enpiris deminiitio), existing obligations such as those under contract were extinguished.'- Means were e\ entualh' de\ ised to avoid this. 15ut there war. 11 G. 3.94. 12 See, e.g., Buckland, Textbook, pp. i34ff.; Kaser, Privatrecht, i, pp. 27if. 130
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