A characteristic of the institutional works of the third century A.D. is, above all, the presence particularly inside their proemes of a series of varied precepts based on ethicalphilosophical principles, more or less re-elaborated by the authors in a more typically technicaluridical perspective: on the basis both of this fact and the exegesis of the fragments concerned, one could think that in the conception of the Severian jurists the law school was the privileged place for the general (technical but also ethical) training of the individual, even more and in a better way than the schools of the ancient philosophical tradition that were spread all over the empire during that time.
1. I proemi 'filosofeggianti' delle opere istituzionali severiane. - 2. Il diritto come vera philosophia nelle' Institutiones di Ulpiano'. - 3. La 'cognatio naturalis' fra gli uomini nelle Istituzioni di Fiorentino. - 4. L'eguaglianza naturale fra liberi e schiavi nelle Istituzioni di Ulpiano, Marciano, Fiorentino. - 5. Conclusione: le scuole di diritto come luoghi privilegiati per la formazione complessiva dell'individuo nella concezione dei giuristi severiani.